


To Catch a Spider

by orphan_account



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Alternate Universe - Spies & Secret Agents, Arc Reactor Angst, Arc Reactor Kink, BAMF Peter Parker, Because I said so that's why, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Nick Fury is French, Peter Parker is a Mess, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Slow Burn, kind of
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-14
Updated: 2020-02-16
Packaged: 2020-05-12 00:21:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 52,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19217812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: After the war, Peter Parker left his career as a spy behind to live a simple life in the south of France. But when someone frames him for the theft of plans for a new weapon, he must re-enter his old life and get close to the real thief's likely next target - one Tony Stark.A To Catch a Thief AU.





	1. Chapter 1

_Cote d’Azur, France 1950_

A sunny place for shady people. That’s what one of those indolent British writers had called the French Riviera, and Peter Parker didn’t disagree. It was one of the reasons, after all, that he had chosen it as a place to hunker down and lick his wounds after the war.

The French, in general, seemed to take a looser approach to those operating on society’s edges than their American counterparts. It made sense. Laissez-faire is, after all, a French philosophy. Regardless of why, it’s something Peter is usually very grateful for. 

Only now, at this exact moment, people don’t seem very interested in letting him be. He’d risen early that morning to go to the market, and is just returning home with a net bag full of mussels, a small round of goat’s cheese and a crusty baguette when he notices that the little cobbled side street he lives on is much more crowded than usual.

There are three men in nondescript grey suits and dark hats lurking in the alcove of the mechanic’s shop, and a black sedan parked up at the far end of the street, blocking the entrance. Peter glances up at the kitchen window of his little apartment, five floors up, and finds the curtain has been pushed to the side. He always, always closes the curtain before he leaves. He doesn’t like the idea of prying eyes glancing in on his living space.

The hairs on Peter’s arms stand on end. Something is very wrong. Senses surging to high alert, he forces his body to visibly relax. He walks past the entrance to his apartment building, where another suited man is standing, smoking a cigarette and watching. Jesus, they aren’t even being subtle. He marks them as French secret service almost immediately. If he had to guess, he’d say they’re agents of the DST – Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire.

There are, luckily, a few other people using Peter’s street as a cut-through this morning, so he doesn’t stand out among them. If the French servicemen have a photo, it’s probably the one from his SSR file, which means it’s at least eight years old. He’s grown taller and filled out since then. 

During the war, Peter had been the youngest recruit ever to join the Strategic Scientific Reserve. He’d lied about his age when he enlisted, said he was 18 instead 14. Ned had helped him forge the paperwork, but honestly by that point the Army had just been looking for cannon fodder.

He could never have actually passed for an adult in any other context, but the doctors processing new recruits weren’t asking too many questions or looking too closely. It was 1943, and the country was already two years into a blistering war. Peter passed muster just fine without any actual objections, though there were a few nurses who gave him sympathetic looks as they recorded his vitals and handed him his uniform. 

Probably they thought he was running away from something – back-breaking factory work, or abuse, or just grueling, abject poverty. He had been running away, really. Away from Ben’s death, and the aching sadness in May’s eyes every time she looked at him. 

But he likes to think of it, still, like he was running toward something. A chance to make a difference. A chance to save people. He joined up thinking he could be a hero. On good days, he feels like he’s done that. On bad days, he’s not so sure he isn’t a villain.

Peter had never been much to write home about, physically speaking, but he had always been clever. It hadn’t taken him long to attract the attention of an SSR recruiter. He was small, and acrobatic, and he had a face that most people looked at, and then glanced away from without taking note of it. Brown hair, brown eyes, fair skin – he could be from literally anywhere across Europe, and had played a dozen different nationalities in his time.

He had found that his work was usually appreciated and rewarded. A spy is a useful thing during a war. In desperate times, the governments of the world even vie for his favor. But give them leisure and peace, and suddenly your friends start getting skittish.

Maybe they’d had reason to be skittish. Peter hadn’t made things easy on himself after the war ended. He knows that. But he hadn’t expected the SSR to disavow him and his entire unit. Probably he should have expected it. You live, you learn.

But all that had been five years ago, and doesn’t at all explain why there are French spies at his door now. Peter pulls his stocking cap firmly down around his ears and ducks into a narrow alleyway as a woman and her yapping Bichon Frise cause a lucky distraction.

In the alley, he drops his bag of groceries and leaps up to grab hold of a second-floor windowsill, knocking over a small potted geranium from the ledge in the process. He winces at the noise of shattering pottery, but there’s nothing to be done about that now. He pushes off the building with his feet, using his hold to swing himself up and out. With a soft grunt of effort, he stretches out with both his hands and his feet so that he’s braced with his body stretched across the narrow alley, feet pressed against one building, hands flat against the other. 

Slowly, slowly – He’s out of practice, after all – He works his way up toward the roofline. When he makes it to the top, he pushes off with his feet and then rolls, end over end, onto the roof on the opposite side.

Once he’s caught his breath, he leans over the edge of the roof to survey the street. Sure enough, the pot he shattered seems to have gotten the attention of the spooks. A pair of them are swiftly approaching the entrance of his alley. There’s still a small chance, Peter supposes, that they won’t think to look up here. But if they have his file, then they know his reputation. He’s a wall climber. He didn’t earn the nickname “The Spider” for nothing. 

Peter makes the call. Speed is going to do him more favors than stealth right now. He scrambles to his feet, backs up to the very edge of the roof, and then with a running start leaps onto the roof of the next building. Not subtle, certainly. Stone and plaster go flying in a spray of dust, and the impact echoes through the surrounding streets. Peter groans, knees aching from the impact. He’s not used to this type of exertion anymore. His body’s gone all soft and coddled.

But he cannot afford to stop. Down below, he can hear one of the men shouting in French and pin-pointing his location. Peter stands, dusts himself off, and leaps for the next building over, this time ducking and rolling in order to baby his knees. God, what he wouldn’t give for some of his old gear. Over the frenetic pounding of his own heart, he can hear the servicemen below revving the engines of their car, obviously prepared to give chase. 

All that means, really, is Peter needs to go where a car cannot in order to shake his tail. He can hear where they are now based on the rumble of their engine. He breaks left, and follows the line of a helter-skelter alley for a while, managing to put the space of a couple buildings between himself and the main road, where the spooks’ car is roaring away. 

When he thinks he’s got enough of a cushion, he looks for a likely exit. Peter spots what he’s looking for after a couple more jumps – an open window on the top floor of a building, curtains fluttering in the sea breeze, a pie settled neatly on the window ledge to cool. God bless French matrons and their baking.

Peter spares a thought of regret for the no-doubt delectably flaky pastry, and then flings himself toward the right building. 

This time, instead of leaping for the center of the roof, he pulls back just a  little. His hands catch and scrabble for the edge. It momentarily sends his heart fluttering as he struggles for a firm hold, but he manages. Then he edges himself, hand over hand, toward the right window. When he gets there he bodily tosses himself inside, knocking over the pie with a perfect splatter-crash. Peter hopes it was berry.

The sound and the color, at a distance, will hopefully convince the spooks that he’s taken a tumble. Inside the apartment, the lady whose pie he has wantonly destroyed is wailing at him and gesturing with her rolling pin in a rather threatening manner. 

Peter groans, knowing there’s really no time to catch his breath, and rolls to his feet. When he’s upright he fixes the matron with his biggest, most pathetic looking eyes, and puts a stutter into his voice. 

“Je suis desole,” he says, allowing himself to shake and wipe at his face while cradling his left arm with his right arm. “Mon petit ami …”

The matron’s manner automatically softens. Luckily, the French are a mostly understanding people, and Peter’s not above playing the ill-used twink when it serves his purposes. He wouldn’t be the first to run away with a broken arm from an ill-chosen dalliance.

She’s offering him tea now, but Peter waves her off, asks how to get to the back exit of the building. She obliges him, the wonderful woman. While the French spooks are no doubt converging on the side of the building, Peter is slipping out the back with a borrowed hat from Madam Le Tarte.

He takes a winding path through the back streets for about ten minutes, then makes his way back to the main street where he hops aboard the first bus headed in the right direction to pass by.

It’s about an hour from Biot to Cannes by bus, so Peter settles himself in the long back seat next to a skinny old man with thinning silver hair, a grey moustache, and large aviator-framed glasses.

“What are you looking at, punk?” he asks, in a heavy New York accent as Peter eyes him.

“Nothing,” Peter says with a smile. “Nothing at all.”

The accent is abrasive, but comforting. A little taste of home. It’s not exactly right, more Bronx than Queens, but it’s closer than Peter’s heard in a long time. He gives the man a crooked smile, and nods at the newspaper folded under his arm.

“Do you mind if I borrow that, mister?”

“Have at it, kiddo,” the man says, handing the paper over. “I only buy it for the funny pages anyway.”

Peter takes the paper and spreads it out on his lap. There in black and white, getting newsprint ink all over his hands, he finds the reason for his visitors this morning. He’d known, peripherally of course, that there’s an informal NATO conference convening in Cannes this week. But it hadn’t made much of an impact. Now, though. Now, it’s hitting.

Apparently plans for an experimental French weapon have been stolen from under lock and key, something called a Tesseract, brought to town as part of a technological free exchange the conference is promoting. According to the paper, the thief entered the room where the plans were being held via the roof, cracked the code on a 10-bolt safe, and left behind no physical evidence but for strands of a chemical compound not unlike spider’s silk hanging from the edge of a window. 

Dammit. Someone has Peter’s number but good. No wonder the DST are after him. It’s Peter’s MO down to each tiny detail. No one will ever believe this wasn’t him. He’s already managed to piss off the Americans. If the French turn on him, too, there’s literally nowhere in Europe that will be safe for him.

Peter’s mind flashes momentarily white with panic. This is his home. It’s the only place he’s been able to call home in nearly a decade. And now he’ll have to run – either to Portugal to catch a steamer for South America or to Spain to hop the Ferry to Morocco and thus onto somewhere in Africa outside of European influence.  

It is exhausting and overwhelming to contemplate. Gentile exile, Peter has grown accustomed to. Going on the run is another thing entirely. He closes his eyes and leans back against the vinyl bus seat and tries to concentrate on the gentle chugging of the engine to calm himself.

When they arrive in Cannes, Peter gets off at the bus station, and is temporarily unsure of what to do next. He’s evaded the spooks for now, but that won’t last if he doesn’t get his act together. He gives himself one full minute to sit on a bench with his head in his hands and feel perfectly, miserably sorry for himself. 

Then he makes himself consider what he has to do next. He remembers his lessons. He was taught very well. Armor. He needs armor first for the battle. Which in this case means a disguise, something besides the striped fisherman’s shirt they’ve already seen him in. He needs only go across the street to the Cannes central train station and there pick someone close enough to his size that he can make do. 

The toff that he picks is an easy mark. He’s three-quarters of the way to passed-out drunk at only half-past eleven in the morning. It’s easy work to go up to him to ask for directions, turn him about a couple times pretending to be very lost indeed, and then send him on his dizzy way sans suitcase. 

Usually outright thieving like that makes Peter’s gut knot up with guilt, but the gentleman in question was likely planning on purchasing a new continental wardrobe while on holiday anyway, so he really can’t feel too bad. The man was a little taller and a little skinnier than Peter, but the clothes fit alright with a little adjusting and tugging. He picks out a beige summer suit and a pale blue shirt, and gratefully pockets the money bag the young man was thoughtful enough to keep in his suitcase. It’s a morale boost just when he needs it the most.

Finally outfitted properly, he exits the train station with the suitcase in tow, and hails a cab. The next step is, luckily, very clear. He has to warn Adrian and the others that the authorities may soon be headed their way. It’s not that Peter lacks a self-preservation instinct, but he owes the boys a great deal, and his remaining sense of honor won’t allow him to just make a run for it.

Adrian Toomes was old before the war even started. He had been the elder statesman of their little unit. And when they had all gotten tossed out on their asses by the American government, he had made sure his men had a way to survive. All except Peter, who had earned his anger.

The rumor going around back then had been that he tried to blow up a building with Peter in it after their falling out. In reality, they had simply chosen a bad place for a physical altercation. The little farmhouse in the countryside had already sustained considerable bombing damage, and two grown men throwing each other into walls had brought what was left of the second story down on both their heads. Luckily, there hadn’t been much of a second story to speak of by that point. 

But aside from Peter, Toomes was unfailing loyal to his men. They all work together now at a restaurant off the Cannes waterfront, L’Assiette Bleu. It’s Adrian’s idea of a joke, a little dig at the French upper crust who come to his place and end up eating the blue plate special. 

It’s nice enough from the outside, little tables set out under a striped awning in front of large picture windows that look in on a cool interior. The moment Peter walks in, he can feel the eyes on him, angry and accusing.

When he enters the kitchen, the clattering of cutlery and soft thunk of knives against cutting boards stops almost immediately. Peter surveys the room. There’s Wade with his gruesome scars and his sad eyes, hunkered over the oven. Quill is slicing onions and eyeing Peter up and down. Drax is standing still and silent, cleaver still poised to come down on a leg of lamb. And then there’s Bucky, hands hovering and trembling over a delicate plated desert with Sam’s hand on his good arm, holding him back from action.

The tension breaks with a loud snap when Bucky wrestles himself out of Sam’s grasp and lunges. Peter takes one step back in alarm while the rest of the men converge around Bucky to hold him back, and then Adrian is storming out of his office. As well as he can storm with one bum leg that he has to drag along behind him like a dead thing, courtesy of a bullet that shattered bone in his left leg and the infection that followed when they couldn’t get to medical help for a week.  

“Hey, hey!” he yells. “Knock it off, boys! This is a kitchen not a boxing ring. Barnes, outside until you cool off.”

Bucky shakes off the many hands on him and steps back. His eyes bore into Peter’s, and he spits in his direction before backing up and storming out the back door, which bangs loudly behind him.

“The rest of you, back to work,” Adrian says, scowling. “We got orders. And you.” 

He crooks a finger at Peter. 

“In my office. Now.”

When Adrian closes the door to his office behind Peter, he immediately crowds into his space, placing one meaty index finger to the center of Peter’s chest and pushing so that Peter stumbles back a step.

“You got some nerve, you little shit,” he says, stalking over to his desk and leaning against it. 

“I’m sorry, Adrian,” Peter says. “You know I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t important.”

“You can forget it,” Adrian says. “I’m through bailing you out, Pete. Those days are gone.”

“I know,” Peter says, and it hits him fresh, like a punch in the gut, just how much he’s lost. They used to be brothers. They used to be like family. “Adrian, believe me, I know. I didn’t come here expecting anything. I came to warn you. A bunch of DST agents came calling at my place this morning. Apparently there was a burglary. They’ll probably be paying you a visit soon.”

“Of course,” Adrian snorts. “Of course you couldn’t help yourself. “

“It wasn’t me, ok?” Peter says. “It’s a set up, I swear. But that won’t stop them from hassling you. So if you’ve got anything at all under the table going on …”

“Oh, you’re one to talk.”

“If you’ve got anything at all that they could latch onto, you might want to make sure it’s hidden. I’m just trying to do the right thing here, Adrian.”

“Yeah, and look where that’s got us,” he says.

The guilt forms a heavy knot in Peter’s stomach. 

“How are Liz and Doris?” he asks.

Adrian scratches absently at the grey stubble on his face, a faraway look in his eyes. 

“They’re as well as can be expected,” he says. “Doris is getting remarried next month.”

Peter winces at this news.

“No,” Adrian says, trying to wave away the expression. “No, she’s a good woman. She deserves a fresh start. Someone who can be there for her.”

“I’m sorry …” Peter says, voice weak in his throat.

Adrian just shakes his head.

“Alright, Spider boy,” he says, pure exhaustion evident in every line of his body. “You’ve given your dread warning. Now get out of here. I don’t want you to see you darken my door again.”

“Take care of yourself, old man,” Peter says.

He glances back once in the doorway, but Adrian won’t meet his eyes.

It feels like walking through a gauntlet as he makes his way through the kitchen and out the back door. He’s done his duty and warned them, he supposes. Nothing much else to be done. Somehow, it doesn’t make him feel much better.

He exits into an alleyway, and immediately ducks as a fist sails over his head. Bucky growls as his right fist slams into the plaster. He looks savage, a sling to conceal the nub of his missing arm tied over a white, sweat-stained shirt and his striped baker’s apron, face contorted in anger with his hair falling into his face. 

“Bucky, just stop!” Peter yells. 

“You couldn’t just leave us alone, could you, punk?”

Bucky’s next punch catches Peter in the jaw, and his teeth clang together in a jolt of sharp pain. 

“You couldn’t keep your sticky little fingers to yourself, and now they’re gonna come for all of us. What’s the old man gonna do when they throw him in jail for the rest of his life, huh?”

Peter catches Bucky’s fist on the next swing and pushes him back with all his strength, which is more than it looks like he should have. Bucky slams against the opposite wall, and Peter clutches at his knees, breathing heavily.

He’s not wrong, is the thing. They’ll all pay if Peter goes down for this. The authorities won’t need an actual reason. They’ll create one if necessary. And it will all be Peter’s fault. 

“I didn’t do it, Buck,” Peter rasps. “I swear I didn’t. And I’m gonna fix it. I am going to prove I didn’t do this. I just need a little time. I’ve got to gather some information. If anyone can find who’s really responsible it’s me. You know it is.”

Bucky lets his head fall back against the wall and stares Peter down through narrowed eyes.

“You swear you didn’t do it?” he says.

“Buck, I swear.”

He bangs his head gently against the wall.

“Dammit, punk,” Bucky says with a chagrined smile. “I shouldn’t believe a goddamn word you say, so why do I?”

“I just got one of those faces,” Peter deadpans.

Bucky shakes his head and laughs bitterly.

“You fucking do,” he says. “If you’re serious, you should go see Wanda. She runs some secretarial service now just down the way off of La Croisette, but she still keeps her hand in the game from what I hear. Plus, she still owes you one. Might be able to give you a place to start.” 

Peter nods.

“Thanks, pal,” he says. 

“You oughta get out of here,” Bucky says. “They catch you hanging around here it’ll be that much worse.” 

“I am sorry, Buck,” he says. “I wish it could’ve been different.” 

Bucky doesn’t respond, just watches Peter with hooded eyes and a mouth set in a sullen straight line. He’s no doubt thinking it could have been different if Peter weren’t such a self-righteous asshole. Peter knows the look. He’s been on the receiving end of that look too many times to count.

He raises his hand in one final farewell, and then he darts out of the alley, keeping his head low and walking swiftly, just trying to blend in with the crowds of tourists making their way along the waterfront.

He finds Wanda’s place not far down Cannes’ main drag, down a little cobbled side street. The storefront is simple and no-nonsense, under a black and white sign that reads simply “Secretaire.”

A little bell jingles when Peter walks into the small office, and then Wanda’s looking up and fixing him with a huge smile.

“If it isn’t my favorite spider,” she says, her English spoken with a light Russian accent that she somehow manages to conceal completely when she speaks in French.

“Wanda,” Peter says, returning her grin. “It’s been too long.” 

She props her elbows on a fancy cherry wood desk and leans her chin onto folded hands.

“I hope you’ve come to see me because you’ve got something to sell. If the papers aren’t just spreading rumors, I’d be very interested in buying. You know I can make you a good price”

“Bucky said you were still in the game,” Peter says, lightly, ignoring her inquiry. “I’m a little surprised.” 

Wanda shrugs.

“You know how it is,” she says. “This is what I know how to do. It’s all I know how to do. And I’m very good. Do you know I provide secretaries to most of the French foreign dignitaries, and those men cannot keep their mouths shut. Throw a pretty girl in a tight skirt in their paths, and they sing like canaries.”

“That sounds awfully boring,” Peter replies. 

“It’s interminable,” she says. “God, it makes one long for the old days. At least you and your little brood helped make things interesting.”

Sure, they had all technically been on the same side during the war, but the alliance had always been a testy one, especially for those in espionage. And there had always been a fair amount of competition for the latest and best information.

“Well, we tried,” Peter says.

“So,” Wanda says. “Are you here to make things interesting again, Spider?”

“I really wish you’d stop calling me that,” Peter says. “And I’m sorry to disappoint, but I haven’t stolen anything in five years.”

“That is … Disappointing,” Wanda says. “But then why are you here visiting me?”

“Someone’s setting me up,” Peter says. “I need to catch whoever’s responsible. I thought you might be able to help me. I still have people I need to protect, but the only way to clear my name is to catch whoever’s doing this in the act.”

“So you need the names of potential targets,” Wanda surmises.

And Peter really loves how quick she is on the uptake. He’s missed this, the back and forth, the complete understanding he has with someone else who’s done what he’s done and been where he’s been.

“I do,” he nods. “Wanda, if you know anything …”

“I do owe you a debt,” she says, with an enigmatic Gallic shrug.

“You owe me several,” Peter agrees. “But I’ll settle for just a name.”

“Ooh,” Wanda says with an approving smile. “The Spider bites. This one’s easy though. If it were me, that is to say if whoever this is is good at what they’re doing, I’d set my sights on Tony Stark.” 

Peter nearly chokes on his tongue.

“Tony Stark is in Cannes?”

“He is, along with an SSR contingent. Or so say my sources. They are very good sources. Rumor has it he’s here to announce some sort of technological breakthrough. Something big enough that all the governments of Europe are interested. If your thief is still on the prowl, that’s where they’ll set their sights.” 

Peter considers this. It’s a complication he wasn’t expecting. It would be much simpler to trail your average government bureaucrat, even one in the highest levels of government. Tony Stark, genius, billionaire, playboy philanthropist, will be significantly harder to get close to, what with his high public profile.

He’s considering the right way to approach this when Wanda reaches across the table and grabs his wrist.

“What?” Peter asks.

Her eyebrows are knit together as she looks out the window over his shoulder. 

“I think our friends in the DST are about to pay me a visit,” she says.

Peter doesn’t turn, but he struggles to keep his posture natural. This is very bad.

“Shit, Wanda …” 

She shushes him, swiftly.

“Come with me,” she says. “Out the back.”

She’s a professional, so she doesn’t rush. Even takes the time to smooth down her skirt and blouse as she rises, then turns on a pointed heel to lead him through a door and into the back room. 

“Anya,” she snaps at the girl she finds in the next room, filing some papers along a long line of cabinets. “Go man the front desk. If anyone asks, I’ve been away at a meeting for the past half hour.” 

“Oui, Madam Maximoff,” the girl says with a businesslike nod of her bobbed head, and hurries through the same door they just used.

Peter follows her silently and tensely through a maze of crowded desks until they are exiting into an alleyway that’s crowded with dumpsters and wooden pallets from the stores on the street unloading freshly-delivered merchandise. 

Wanda looks to her right, and Peter sees her lips tilt up just slightly.

“Thank God,” she says.

She pulls Peter by the wrist over to a little circle of men sitting on a stack of pallets smoking cigarettes, zeroing in on one in particular.

“Quentin, get off your lazy ass,” she snaps. “Monsieur Smith requires a tour of the coast by boat. You will accommodate him.” 

Peter’s heart gives an involuntary shudder in his chest at the name, and then the man is raising his artfully-tousled brunette head to look at Wanda, exhaling a dramatic cloud of smoke in her direction. And when the smoke clears, sure enough, it’s Quentin Beck.

The grin spreads across his face unnecessarily slowly even as Wanda is snapping at him.

“Hurry it up, he hasn’t got all day.”

“Certainly, Mr. … Smith was it?” He says rising to his feet and eying Peter, gaze sweeping like a physical touch from the crown of Peter’s head, down his chest and legs, to the arches of his feet.

“He’s going to the Hotel Carlton,” Wanda says, lower, only for Peter and Beck’s ears.

Then she’s shooing them down the alley. You can see the crystal blue sea from here, waves plashing against the rock wall that holds it back just here. Tied up along the wall is a little yellow speed boat that appears to be their destination.

Peter follows Beck across the street towards the boat with a wave to Wanda, who shouts out to him “I’ll be in touch!” as they hurry away.

He hops aboard the boat while Quentin unties it, tossing the rope into the water and jumping onboard himself. He slips behind the wheel and guns the engine with a little smirk in Peter’s direction, then they’re pulling away from the mooring and cutting like a knife through the sparkling water. 

They keep up their speed and heading until they must be several miles away from their starting point, and then Quentin slows them down, turns the engine off, and turns to lean on the silver railing of the boat and stare across the way at Peter. The sudden silence after the roar of the engine is shocking.

His glance is still like a weight on Peter’s skin, but it’s thankfully less lascivious this time, more assessing. 

Peter, for his part, looks out at the coast, sun-bleached white rocks meeting deep blue waves in a stunning contrast. The unrelenting white is broken occasionally by the black of a twisting road, the green of an outcropping of sea pines, or the pastel pink, or yellow, or blue of the villas that cling to the cliffs like multi-colored barnacles to a pale hull. The cliffs stretch slowly upward until they fade into the soft green of misty hills. 

It’s no wonder, Peter thinks, that people travel from across the world to debauch themselves here of all places. It’s beautiful, like an intricate jewel box opening up before your eyes. For all that he lives in a fishing village, Peter doesn’t actually make it out to sea very often. It’s a rare treat to see his home like this.

“So,” Quentin says, amusement clear in his tone. “The Spider finally emerges from his web.”

He’s always been so dramatic, has Quentin Beck. He came to the SSR directly from Hollywood, where he did special effects for the pictures. His dab hand with an explosion or a diversion had gotten Peter out of a number of jams back in the day. Turns out a little movie magic can be helpful in the middle of a war zone too.

“That’s not who I am anymore, Q,” Peter says. 

“Well, that’s what I thought, but then I read the newspaper this morning. Imagine my surprise to see my old pal back in the game again.”

“I’m not in the game,” Peter objects. “You’ve got the wrong idea.”

“And I suppose you came to visit Wanda just for old time’s sake?” Quentin says with a smirk.

That expression on the man’s face takes Peter back. He used to find it charming instead of grating. He used to find Q very charming indeed. It had only lasted a few months, though, their entanglement. He hadn’t been very nice in the end. Q liked to be the smartest person in any room, and when he wasn’t he got angry. And when he was angry he liked to start swinging.

Peter had been young then, but never been a pushover. He’d allowed that to happen exactly once before he ended things for good.

Now, he finds that smirk on Q’s face grates like teeth grinding together, his eyes on Peter’s body make his skin crawl. 

“I was surprised to find you at Wanda’s,” Peter counters. “I didn’t think the old man would approve.”

“Oh, me and Adrian are in the middle of a spat,” Q says with a shrug. “I started doing some odd jobs for Wanda. Just to make a bit of cash, you see. Keep my hand in. He threw a fit. He’ll get over it soon enough, but I’m not exactly welcome at the restaurant right now.” 

“Right,” Peter says, monumentally unsurprised, now that he thinks on it.

“I could help you out, you know,” Q says. “I’ve got connections, if you want to get rid of those plans. Think about it, Peter. We could make a fortune. Head for South America, live the high life.” 

“Q …” 

“I can be a lot of fun, Peter. I know you remember.” 

He sways forward, bringing a hand up to Peter’s waist. The contact makes him shiver and cringe away.

“I don’t have the plans, Q,” he says. “It wasn’t me. I went to see Wanda because I’ve got to clear my name. I can’t run away from this. Not this time.”

Q backs up, holds his hands up as though washing them of the situation.

“If you insist,” he says. “But if you change your mind, I’m always here to help.”

 “You can help by starting the boat up,” Peter says. “I need to go to the Hotel Carlton, like Wanda said.”

Q snorts a little at that. 

“Well, Wanda is the boss,” Q replies. 

He gives Peter one more appraising look, and then revs the boat engine. 

Peter needs to make an inconspicuous arrival at the hotel. He hates to leave his newfound wardrobe behind, but he’ll have to find another. He changes into the pair of atrociously loud plaid swim trunks in the suitcase and wraps the bag of cash and traveler’s cheques he’d discovered earlier in a packet of oil cloth. Q gives him another smirk when he sees Peter tuck the package inside the trunks.

Peter just rolls his eyes. Needs must, and Q knows that. He has his former colleague slow the boat as they near the Hotel Carlton’s private strip of white, sandy beach spotted with blue and white striped umbrellas and plush lounge chairs. 

He still has no idea, really how he’s going to manage to get close to one of the richest and most famous men on the planet, but he’s made it this far without a real plan. An opportunity will present itself. It has to. Peter just needs to be there to strike when it does. 

“I’ll see you around, Q,” he says, just as he slides off into the bath-warm water. 

“Don’t drown, little spider,” Q calls back.

Then he revs the engine and pulls away, leaving Peter rocking in his wake.

*

Standing on a sun-drenched terrace in the south of France, drinking a seabreeze and observing the miles and miles of tanned and toned flesh on display, Tony Stark lets out a melodramatic groan and motions for a refill. He’s been here for less than 24 hours, and he’s already practically bored to sobs.

He can’t imagine, now, why he let the director and Agent Agent talk him into coming to this thing. He should have sent Pepper or Rhodey. He should have told the SSR to put on their own dog and pony show. His father never answered to them, and neither does Tony.

He could be back in New York in his lab right now, working on the latest version of the suit. Sure, it’s not practicable yet, but he just needs time. Time to concentrate, time to work. Time away from all this bureaucratic bullshit. 

There had been a time in his life when drinking, sunbathing, and keeping an eye out for cute cabana boys would have met all of his ambitions perfectly. But those days are past, burned away in the crucible of months in a cave in the Moroccan desert.

Besides, his, er … Enhancements make sunbathing impracticable now. So instead he paces the terrace in his Balmain white linen suit and tries to drink enough to make the boredom bearable, but not enough for the agent to come down and intervene. Tony doesn’t ask how he knows. He just always does.

He’s almost made up his mind to retire to the casino, where at least he can count cards or something, when he sees him emerge from the water. His skin is pale compared to the brown of most of the summer holiday makers on the beach, flawless as marble and sculpted so that he might actually be one of the Davids brought to life but for a truly unfortunate pair of plaid trunks. Tony’s gaze moves from a compactly muscled chest, up surprisingly sturdy shoulders to the man’s face.

The face gives him pause. Those sharp cheekbones, those lips … He knows that face. Where does he know that face? It’s right there, just where he can almost reach it, at the edges of his mind. He reaches out, and his eyes widen as it hits him. A little three by three photo, paper clipped to the corner of the file the agent had waved in front of him at breakfast this morning. He’s younger in the photo, or course. Eight years have robbed his face of its baby fat, mad his jaw sharper, his expression gaunter. But there’s no mistaking him.

Peter Parker, codename “The Spider.” Disgraced SSR spy and current lead suspect in the theft of the plans for that new French weapon that was meant to be unveiled during the meetings this week. _Oh, you have been a naughty boy, Peter Parker,_ Tony thinks.   

He’s actually pretty impressed that the kid has the balls to show up here in the middle of such a crowd when he must know he’s a wanted man. Tony can’t help the smile that creeps across his face. It’s a conundrum. It’s a mystery. But most of all, it’s something new. He wants to laugh with the giddy thrill of it.

He watches avidly as the kid shakes the seawater from his hair, swipes it back out of his face with one hand, and then meanders onto the beach, just a bit too casually to actually be casual. Mr. Parker walks by one of the hotel lounge chairs and picks a bag up off the ground then makes a beeline for the changing tents. When he emerges a few minutes later, he’s wearing a lounging outfit of matching shorts and a button-up top in a pale pink stripe, a straw panama hat tipped low over his face.

Tony follows at a distance as Mr. Parker pads across the terrace and into the hotel lobby in stolen boat shoes that must be at least a size too big for him. He still manages to move gracefully, Tony notes, as though his body is a thing he’s in total control over.

He dares creep a little closer as Mr. Parker rings the reception bell and speaks to the concierge. The conversation seems to start civilly enough, but soon enough the kid’s face is contorting in anger and indignation, and his voice is raised higher than polite company would allow for.

“What do you mean you lost my reservation?” he demands. “I must say, I expected more of a hotel of this caliber.”

“As I say,” the concierge counters. “We cannot lose something that never existed.”

“What precisely are you accusing me of?” 

“I accuse nothing, monsieur. I simply say, we have no reservation, and no rooms. Full up.”

And, well, Tony has to take pity on the kid, doesn’t he? He understands the tack he’s taking, figures he can harry the man up enough to give him whatever he wants. But he thinks the kid might be underestimating the existing harriedness level of this particular concierge. Tony’s gone toe to toe with a French concierge in his day. They are a vicious breed.

“What’s this, Philippe?” he interjects, walking closer and lowering his sunglasses, hanging them in the v of his partially unbuttoned shirt. Not too many buttons, though. Just so. “Are you terrorizing the guests again?” 

“Non, Monsieur Stark,” the man says, waving his wildly in Mr. Parker’s direction. “I was simply telling this gentleman that we have no rooms for him. The conference, the summer tourists. We are fully booked.” 

He takes not a little pleasure in how the kid spins around, big brown eyes going abnormally wide as Tony looms over him. He follows the line of the kid’s throat as he swallows hard. Something he’s not prepared for, then. Good.

“Oh, now, that’s not quite true,” Tony says, leaning over the kid’s shoulder to talk to Philippe. “There’s the room next to mine. It’s open. He can have that one.” 

“But you said for security, Monsieur Stark, it must remain empty …”

Tony waves the objection away.

“Nonsense,” he says. “Unnecessary precaution. Philippe, have Mr. …” 

“Reilly,” the kid says, dazedly. And no, Tony doesn’t miss that he has to glance down at the business card clutched in his hand to remind himself who he’s supposed to be. “Ben Reilly.” 

“Mr. Reilly,” Tony says, pitching his voice low. “A pleasure.”

He makes to shake the young man’s hand, but at the last moment feints and pulls those thin, nimble fingers in so he can brush his lips against them. It’s just the barest contact, but he can feel the kid’s fingers tremor before he pulls away as though he’s been stung by something.

He gives a little huff, and Tony can’t quite tell if it’s suppressed laughter or outrage until he raises his head to meet his eyes and finds them crinkled and glinting with amusement. Something warm spreads through Tony’s chest at that glance.

“Philippe, have Mr. Reilly installed in the room next to mine,” Tony says, without taking his eyes off the kid.

“You, um, you really don’t have to do that, Mr. Stark,” the kid says. “I wouldn’t want to impose on your … arrangements.”

Tony turns, and walks away from the reception desk, with his hands clasped behind his back. He feels very gratified when the kid trails after him.

“Not at all,” Tony says. “After all, one good turn deserves another and all that.”

“But I haven’t done you a good turn yet, Mr. Stark.” 

“Well, kid, I am very much hoping to change that,” he says with a grin, eyes darting over to take in the expression on the other man’s face.

He’s flushed just ever so slightly pink, pitfall of that pale complexion. It’s the only thing that gives him away.

“That depends very much on what sort of turn you’re hoping to receive, sir.”

Oh, he’s sassy. Tony loves it when they’re sassy. 

Tony stops when he reaches the bank of gold plate elevators, and pushes the button to call one, then he turns to survey the young man beside him.

“Hm,” he says thoughtfully. “I think, Mr. Reilly, that I’ll settle for you having dinner with me tonight. This time.”

Surely he’s not imagining the shiver that the kid shakes off when he intones ‘this time.’

Tony smiles wide at his little spy and he, somewhat bemusedly, returns the expression. Then the elevator dings its arrival, and Tony reaches out to keep the doors open.

“You’re going up to the very top,” he says. “Room 1503.”

“Um, thank you, Mr. Stark.”

“Don’t mention it,” Tony says. “Should I have them send your luggage up, Mr. Reilly?”

“I’m afraid the airport misplaced my luggage,” he says, shrugging.

Tony tsks.

“Really, kid, you gotta learn to keep better watch over your things. First your reservation, then your luggage. Can’t be so careless. There are thieves about, you know.”

“I’ll keep an eye out.”

“And I’ll send you up a suit for dinner,” Tony says, already picturing the lines of what he wants in his head. “My tailor in Cannes is a genius. You’ll look stunning.”

“I-I couldn’t possibly …” the kid is saying, but the elevator doors are closing. 

“Hotel restaurant at eight sharp,” Tony tells him, before they close completely. “I’ll see you there.” 

“See you there …” the other man responds weakly.

Tony shoots him a discreet wink just before the doors shut, and he’s on his way up. He turns away from the elevator bank and just, just barely resists actually rubbing his hands together in glee. He’s going to catch himself a real, live spy. Not what he expected from his time in Cannes, but as a distraction, you really can’t beat it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to feyrelay for creating the fabulous mood board at the top of this chapter. It's so pretty, ya'll!


	2. Chapter 2

Peter leans his back against the mirrored gold wall of the elevator and sinks down to the floor. He feels as though he’s been run over by a truck, and he’s still not sure quite what happened just there. 

He knows he wouldn’t have been knocked so far onto his back foot if he weren’t so damn rusty. But even at his sharpest, he comforts himself, he wouldn’t have expected his target to just come up to him and start … Well, flirting. That’s the only possible word for it, isn’t it? Tony Stark flirted with him. To what purpose, Peter’s not sure. 

His is a world-renowned playboy, Peter reasons. Perhaps that’s just how he interacts with people, unable to help himself. Perhaps he likes the looks of Peter in particular? But that can’t possibly be. If he were serious, he wouldn’t be so blatant. That’s not how these sorts of things are conducted at all between men of a particular persuasion. And besides, there’s never been a hint of any sort of unnatural connections around Stark. When he’s photographed, it’s usually with the same brand of tall, curvy blonde on his arm. He’s been a noted womanizer for ages.

He could just be bored, which honestly Peter thinks is the most likely scenario. Tony Stark is a genius. He’s not the type to be truly entertained by the slow pace of life on the Riviera. It’s something that Peter’s had to train his own brain into accepting. And the notebooks hidden underneath a loose floorboard in his now abandoned Biot apartment are proof that he hasn’t done that very well. Peter’s brain is always moving, always churning, always inventing. He can only imagine that Stark’s is like that but dosed with a healthy portion of Benzedrine. 

There is one other possibility, of course. He could be rumbled. Stark might have recognized him. But what are the odds, really, that he would be at all in a position to see Peter’s SSR file, and then would recognize him despite the eight years of changes since any photos were taken of Peter. It’s plausible, just barely, but not at all likely.

Peter sighs and looks his gold-plated reflection in the eye across the length of the elevator. The reason it bothers him, he knows, is not that it’s too easy. It is too easy, but Peter’s leaned to press whatever advantages he has with a frank bloodthirstiness over the years. The problem is that he’s always harbored a bit of a pash for Tony Stark.

As a kid, he used to follow all of his public appearances in the papers. Aunt May had always done him the curtesy of not commenting if she noticed a pattern in the photos and articles that Peter cut out of their daily newspaper. He had been fascinated.

Before Peter had enlisted, he had followed with a fascinating horror the news reports about Stark’s kidnapping in Morocco during the allied invasion, and months later of his daring, single-handed escape. 

In his photos, he was a striking man – dark eyes always glinting with a sly humor, strong jaw accented by that meticulously groomed beard, swagger evident in every inch of his body. But mostly it had been that wild, unstoppable intelligence that had given birth to so much new technology that it had almost seemed like magic that had tempted him.

All combined, he had played not a small role in Peter understanding his own leanings. Having that long-ago idol standing right in front of him, kissing his hand, winking, asking him to dinner, had discombobulated Peter in a way he didn’t like to think about. It was embarrassing to find himself, in the end, so susceptible to that charm offensive.

The elevator bell dings, and the doors slide open to the top floor, so Peter raises himself to his feet and shuffles out to find his room. Mr. Ben Reilly, wherever he’s headed now, will no doubt be surprised at the charges to his bank. The room must cost more than what Peter makes in half a year giving English lessons to the children of Biot and the surrounding villages. But it’s also likely less than Mr. Reilly lost at the Baccarat tables during his time in Cannes – if his state of drunkenness is anything to go by – so he can’t feel too bad.

The room, which Peter opens with a heavy metal key slipped to him by the concierge, turns out to be more of a suite, with a large blue-carpeted living room, a balcony overlooking the ocean, an adjoining bedroom with an enormous king bed covered in stark white linens, and an adjoining bathroom done almost entirely in a pale marble with a bathtub shaped like a clam shell.

The whole place is designed to be a haven for the super rich, down to the light scent of jasmine that lingers in the air from where an army of maids must have recently been through. The bright, airy peacefulness of the place at first takes Peter aback. Then he feels all of the events of the day catch up to him in one fell swoop. It’s nearly four now. He’s been on the run since half-past ten this morning. 

Peter flings open the balcony doors to let a soft, salt-scented breeze to flow inside. Then he shuffles into the bedroom, kicking off his overly-large stolen shoes, and collapses face-first into the goose-down mattress. He groans at the soft give. At home, he sleeps on a horsehair pallet on the floor.

He’s half-asleep in a moment, but jerks himself awake with the thought of preparations that have to be made before this evening. Peter rolls a couple of times to get to the edge of the bed where a telephone sits on a sleek marble-topped side table.

A few moments of conversation with the operator puts him through to Wanda’s secretarial pool, and a couple of minutes more for Anya, who’s still manning the front desk, to track Wanda down.

“Oh, thank God,” Wanda says when she hears Peter’s voice on the phone. “I was half-afraid that Quentin might have drowned you in the Med. He looked entirely too pleased with himself when he came back.”

“Still breathing,” Peter assures her. “His only attempted attack was on my virtue.”

Wanda snorts.

“I didn’t realize that was still around to be attacked.”

Peter concedes the point with a disgruntled “Hmph.”

“So, you’re at least safe enough to joke. What’s happening?”

“I’ve got a room at the Carlton,” Peter says.

Wanda whistles at that.

“Living the glamorous life?”

“Can’t complain, Also, I made contact with Stark.”

“That was quick.”

“Yeah, well, he approached me. I’m having dinner with him tonight.” 

Wanda is quiet on the other end of the line.

“Are you sure it’s wise to get quite so close, Peter?” She asks after a long moment.

“It’s rather been taken out of my hands, Wanda. I want you to come with me.”

“You need a chaperone?”

“Just … Maybe a little backup.”

“Alright, fine. I can sense the puppy dog eyes over the phone by the way.”

Peter smiles. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says.

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Also, could you bring some clothes with you when you come?”

Wanda responds only with a heavy sigh.

*

After the kid is gone, Tony retires to the Agent’s room. He has to jimmy the lock, but that’s while avoiding Jarvis’ judgmental gaze.

Once inside the matchbox-size room, he places a call to his tailor and orders a new suit on rush to his best guess at the kid’s measurements. Tony’s got a pretty good eye for these things. Fit shouldn’t be a problem.

Then he finds the file Coulson had waved at him this morning and settles in to read it properly. It is, to say the least, enlightening.

It’s an hour or so later when the key rattles in the lock, and Coulson enters, dressed in his typical somber black suit and tie, and unamused expression.

“Stark,” he greets Tony as though he expected to find him sprawled out on his bed reading files clearly marked top secret.

“I want him,” Tony responds.

“I thought we’d already discussed this,” Coulson says, loosening his tie and sitting down to untie his loafers. “The SSR budget does not stretch to buying you hookers. It barely runs to putting us up at this place. So that will have to be on your own dime. Also, I don’t want to know about it.”

“I don’t want him for sex …” Tony says, then flicks his eyes back to the photo on the cover of the file. “I mean, that’s an obvious lie. But I also want him for the science division. I mean, have you seen the specs for these shooty things he made? Cobbled together from complete trash in the field, but the design is extremely sexy.”

“You were a weapons manufacturer,” Coulson says. “You do know the shooty things are called guns, yes?”

“Not guns, these things,” Tony waves a blueprint from the file in Coulson’s direction. “They use force to convert a liquid chemical compound into a durable solid fiber. Web slingers, they call them. He made them. I want him. Gimme.” 

Coulson rises on socked feet and pads over to the bed to look over Tony’s shoulder.

“You’re referring to Peter Parker?" 

“Yes.”

“You’re referring to the man suspected of unprecedented treason against his country? The one I warned to be on the lookout for this morning?”

“Yes?” Tony says, a little uncertainty finally seeping into his tone.

“The former spy who we now believe has stolen weapon plans from the French? Who may, at this moment, be planning further intellectual theft?” 

“To be fair,” Tony asserts. “I don’t think he really did the first thing. He’s got these eyes. They’re very earnest eyes. Color of a perfect crème brulee. Just, mwah.” 

He kisses his fingers in an exaggerated chef’s kiss.

Coulson immediately narrows his eyes, removes the file from Tony’s hands over protests and slaps, and flips through it to the front.

“This picture is in black and white.”

“So it is,” Tony says.

“So how do you know the color of his eyes?”

“It says in the file,” Tony says, tapping the sheet.

“Funny enough, crème brulee isn’t an option for eye color on official government documents,” Coulson says.

“Well, frankly, that just suggests to me a lack of imagination that I consider a deep and abiding problem for the bureaucrats of our nation.”

“Where is he, Stark?” Tony’s never actually seen Coulson ruffled before, but his tone has taken on the sharp, clipped quality that it only gets when he’s genuinely annoyed. 

“Currently?”

“Best. Guess.”

“Upstairs, in the suite next to mine.”

“The one we had cleared specifically to eliminate any threats to your person?” There is actual strain in his voice, now, which is frankly disturbing.

“They lost his reservation!” Tony says, knowing even as he says it that it’s a lame excuse. One which he doesn’t even believe.

“You are either an imbecile, or the cockiest sonofabitch I’ve ever met,” Coulson says. “Possibly both.”

He drops the file unceremoniously onto the bed and stalks over toward the telephone.

“What are you doing?” Tony asks.

“Calling in backup.”

“Don’t.”

He places a hand over the receiver of the telephone to prevent Coulson from picking it up.

“Really, Coulson, don’t,” Tony insists. “Just hear me out for a minute. I’m having dinner with him tonight.”

Coulson snorts at this, but Tony mostly ignores the interruption. 

“I’m having dinner with him tonight. You should come with me. If you can spend 10 minutes with the guy and still think that he’s someone we have to worry about, then you can be my guest and call in the Wonder Twins and whoever else to take care of things. But I am telling you, there’s something else going on here. He’s smart. He’s almost as smart as me. And I think on top of that, he might also be a good person.”

Coulson grimaces, rubs at the bridge of his nose with his fingers as though Tony has already given him a headache. 

“How long did you talk to this guy for, exactly?”

“Five minutes?” 

“That’s an awfully quick judgment.” 

“I didn’t make it then,” Tony said. “At first I thought it would just be a bit of fun. But read his file again, Coulson. He’s rescued orphans from a bomb. He was reprimanded for using top-secret weapons shipments to sneak Jews out of Poland. He always went for the capture, never the kill. This guy is a hero if I ever saw one.”

“I’ve read the file,” Coulson says.

“And you still think there’s not something weird going on here? Guy was living a quiet life for five years, why interrupt that now?”

“Opportunity?”

“Yeah, well I don’t buy it,” Tony says. “Just meet him first, is all I’m saying. You’ll want eyes on him before you call in backup anyway.”

“Fine,” Coulson grinds out. “Fine. I’ll hold off until tonight. But no promises, Stark.”

“That’s all I ask,” Tony says.

“Now get off my bed, and go back to your own room,” Coulson says, shooing Tony up off of his mattress. “I deserve a nap after all you put me through.” 

*

“It is going to be a very dark day when they call me back to Petrograd,” Wanda says, elongating her limbs in a cat-like stretch and sinking lower into the bubbles in the clam shell tub. “The French know how to do luxury. And I must say, I prefer the southern climes.”

Her long auburn hair is tied up with a pale blue scarf to keep it dry, and she drums her red-varnished nails against the enamel edge of the tub. Standing by the bathroom vanity, lathering up his face for a shave, Peter thinks she looks like something out of a Dutch master’s painting. It’s something about the way her skin catches and reflects the warm light. He appreciates the aesthetics of it, if nothing else.

“When the call comes,” Peter wonders. “Will you answer it?”

“Difficult to say,” Wanda says, running her fingertips absently through the bubbles. “I do know a lot of things that a lot of people would find worthwhile. And I hear Florida is very nice. They say it never snows there.”

Peter chuckles at that. It’s a novel thing, for either of them, to have someone with whom they can talk frankly. It makes a little of the tension he keeps locked up tight in his chest loosen.

It had taken Wanda less than an hour to show up at Peter’s door with the basics of a wardrobe packed away in beige suitcase in one hand, and a garment bag with her own dress in it slung over one shoulder.

“You’re lucky Anya has a brother about your size,” she had said with an exasperated sigh. “I should have known you’d be trouble when you walked through my door.”

“You probably should have,” Peter had admitted with a lopsided grin.

Wanda’s dress is now hung on the back of the bathroom door while they prepare together for the evening. It feels a little like the anticipation before a birthday party, and little like girding themselves for battle. 

Peter sharpens his borrowed straight razor with a few passes on a leather strop, and then carefully runs it along the line of his jaw, watching in the ornate gold-framed mirror as he leaves a smooth, clear patch of skin.

Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Wanda extending a leg out of the bubbles.

“When you’re done, you can bring that razor over here,” she says.

Peter hums his agreement, slicing off the last patch of shaving cream from his cheek, and bringing the cup of shaving cream and razor over the rim of the tub. He offers it to Wanda, but she shakes her head, and raises her leg again.

Peter raises an eyebrow, but doesn’t question her request, settling himself on the lip of the tub and bringing her heel into his lap. 

Wanda sinks lower in the tub, with a smug smile of satisfaction on her face as Peter lathers up her calf with the boar bristle brush.

“You look awfully pleased with yourself,” he says. 

“I feel like a mermaid,” she says, with a little tinkling laugh.

“Surely nothing so harmless,” Peter says, laughing along with her. “More Scylla than Selkie I would say.”

“Are you calling me a maneater?”

“Oh, most definitely.” 

She shrugs, the water rippling with her movement. Peter waits until she stills, and then begins running the razor down her leg, removing the shaving cream in a long smooth line before rinsing the blade off in the water and repeating the motion.

“I think, if given the choice, I’d rather be the witch who makes the monsters, rather than the other way around.” 

Peter flicks his eyes up to hers.

“That, I can believe,” he says. “Lady Circe, then.” 

“Better,” Wanda says with a decisive nod, then she leans her head back against the enamel of the tub.

“You know, Peter, it took me a long time to understand why you did what you did. I took what you offered me, sure. I’m not stupid. But I thought you were crazy at the time.”

Peter’s gut clenches at the mention of the past, but he’s fairly certain that the only way that tension translates is a slight tremor to his hand as he uses it to lift Wanda’s other heel out of the water to begin work on her other leg. 

He clears his throat.

“And now you think you do?” he asks. “Understand?”

“You wanted to achieve balance,” she says. “To save them all from themselves.”

Peter doesn’t stop his work, but he does flick his eyes up to meet her green gaze in a clash. 

“You regret it?”

Peter nods, solemnly.

“But you would do it again?”

He says nothing for a long moment, wishing his answer could be anything but what it is.

“Yes,” he whispers, finally. “Yes, I would.”

“I just wanted you to know I see it now,” Wanda says. “I trust your judgment, more than maybe anyone I know. And that means you can trust me, little spider.” 

She flexes her calf in his grip, as he runs the razor along her skin, and he understands this whole exercise in a flash. She’s trying to prove her loyalty, making herself vulnerable to him, under his hand, under his blade. 

It’s not as though he has much choice but to trust her at this point, but the gesture makes the buzz of danger he’s been feeling in his bones since this whole thing began settle minutely.

Their staring contest comes to an end when there’s a knock on the door. Peter gently lowers her leg back into the cooling water, stands, and grabs a towel to dry his hands on the way to the door.

When he gets there, there’s a bellhop in a pristine navy and gold-buttoned uniform there.

“Delivery, Monsieur Reilly,” he says, holding out a black garment bag. 

“Oh, um, thank you,” Peter says, accepting the bag, and tipping the man a few francs before sending him on his way. 

He lays the bag out on the bed, and unzips it. It’s a dark blue double breasted affair with a pale pattered undervest, white shirt and pale blue tie. When he wrestles himself into the ensemble, it fits like a glove, accenting his coloring and long lines of his body. He blushes a little at the thought of the attention from Stark that must have led to such a perfect fit.

“What are you blushing about?” Wanda asks, wandering out of the en suite. “I would have thought they’d beat that out of you during training.”

The scrutiny only makes Peter flush darker. He really must get a handle on himself. By this point, his face must perfectly match Wanda’s dress, which is a sleeveless scarlet silk sheath fit tight to her curves and reaching just below her knees. She’s pinned her hair so that it flows over one shoulder in a cascade.

“Here,” she says, turning around. “Zip me up.” 

He complies, and then she turns and returns the favor by straightening his tie and mussing his slicked-back hair so that few stray curls fall over his forehead.

“You’ll do,” she declares.

“Gee, thanks Ma.”

“Ooh,” she says catching his chin in her fingers. “I ought to give you such a slap.”

He sticks his tongue out at her, then scuttles away when she does try to slap him, laughing.

“C’mon,” he says, tugging at her hand. “Or we’ll be late.”

They race down the hallway to the elevator, but collect themselves on the trip down, catching their breath and stifling giggles. Peter has managed to put a serious expression on his face when the doors slide open onto the ground floor.

And his carefully schooled expression is promptly ruined by the sight of Tony Stark leaning casually against a marble column in black pants, a white dinner jacket, and an impeccably-tied bowtie. He looks like sin, is what Peter thinks. His black eyes spark with something when he clocks Peter entering the lobby, and the smile that spreads across his face slowly is pure mischief.

Peter’s breath catches in the back of his throat, and he can feel his mouth fall open in a shocked O. Wanda has to poke him in the side before he remembers that he actually has to move. He literally stumbles over his own feet, and watches as Stark’s smile turns even more impish.

He straightens his spine, closes his eyes for a moment to collect himself, and then approaches Stark, Wanda by his side.

“Mr. Reilly,” Stark says, straightening in a sinuous motion and taking Peter’s hand firmly in his in greeting. He’s got calluses on his palms, Peter notices this time. He didn’t expect that. Even thought he knows the man’s a brilliant creator, he somehow didn’t expect him to be the type to do the hard work that takes.

“Mr. Stark,” Peter replies. “May I introduce Ms. Wanda Maximoff?” 

“A pleasure,” Stark says, kissing Wanda’s fingers this time. Peter tries to ignore the flash of jealousy hot in his gut. A ridiculous emotion. “Maximoff. That’s Russian, isn’t it?”

“I’m a French citizen now, Mr. Stark,” Wanda replies. “My family fled to France during the revolution. Low level aristocrats, but aristocrats all the same.”

“Well, you certainly look like royalty tonight,” Stark says, over-the-top charm on full display. “I’m very pleased that Mr. Reilly has brought us such a charming dinner companion. Now, if you’ll both follow me, I’ve arranged for us to eat al fresco tonight.” 

He offers his arm to Wanda and gives Peter a little smirk before ushering them through the main dining room of the hotel restaurant and out onto a terrace. Illuminated by candlelight and the red and pink-tinged light of the sun sinking into the ocean, a table has been set with a white tablecloth and gold dinner service. A man is already seated at the table, dressed in a black business suit. 

While Peter takes it all in, Stark is calling a waiter over to add another place setting to the table, then he’s pulling Wanda and Peter closer in and introducing them.

“Ms. Maximoff, Mr. Reilly, this is Phil Coulson, of the SSR. He’s my chaperone for the conference this week.”

Peter’s heart gives a little stutter at that information, but he shakes Coulson’s hand and gives him a bland, friendly smile. This is all to be expected. He knew Stark wouldn’t be here alone.

“Am I to understand you aren’t in Cannes for pleasure, then, Mr. Stark?” he asks as they settle themselves into their chairs. Stark pulls out the seat across from Coulson for Wanda, who sinks into it gracefully. He seats himself across from Peter.

“I usually manage to find pleasure wherever I go, Mr. Reilly,” Stark replies with an impudent wink. “It’s one of my many talents.”

“You weren’t aware of the NATO conference here this week, Mr. Reilly?” Coulson asks, blandly.

“I wasn’t,” Peter replies. “But now you mention it, I think I saw something about it in the paper this morning? I’m here for fortnight. Escaping the city for the summer. Plus, I wanted to visit Wanda. We’re old friends.”

He gives her a fond smile, which she returns, playing the part admirably.

“The city being New York?” Coulson asks.

“Born and raised,” Peter confirms, comfortably. It’s always best to keep a cover story as close to the truth as possible. Makes it easier to remember and easier to sell. “Queens, originally.” 

They talk about Peter’s cover career for a while – chemist at a large pharmaceutical company. It’s something he knows enough about to speak convincingly, even to a man like Stark, but anonymous enough to not attract too much scrutiny.

They make small talk while a troop of waiters pour a crisp white wine in all their glasses and serve up an appetizer of fresh oysters on a bed of ice while the sun sinks lower into the ocean, turning the light a magical violet color. 

From the main dining room, Peter can hear the tinkling of silverware, the light buzz of conversation, and a band playing the gentle strands of “La Mer.” A warm, salty breeze blows in from the ocean, bringing with it the soothing sound of crashing waves.

It all coalesces to cast what feels like a magic spell over the evening. Against his better judgment, Peter feels himself being pulled under.

*

Peter Parker is absolutely devastating by candlelight. The warm flames make his skin glow golden, and accents the honey highlights in his eyes and in the curls that fall artfully onto his forehead.

Tony’s throat goes dry as he drinks the kid in, and he’s got his wine glass drained before he knows it, without ever really tasting the liquid within. 

Luckily, the waiters are soon pulling away the appetizers and bringing in the fish course, a buttery sole meuniere served along with a lovely, floral Sancerre wine.

“Stark and I met during the war,” Coulson is saying when Tony tunes back into the conversation.

The kid is giving him a narrow-eyed, appraising look, anyway. Probably he should stop staring before it gets creepy –er.

“That’s right,” Tony pipes in, gesturing with his new, half-empty wine glass and turning to the agent. “He showed up right after I’d conveniently rescued _myself_ from an Italian prison camp. The SSR. Always there when you need them.”

“I remember that story in the papers,” Parker says, setting down his wine glass and leaning his elbows on the table so that his whole body is tilted towards Tony. “How did you manage that? I’ve always been insanely curious.”

Tony has a flash of insight that tells him insane curiosity is one of Parker’s most central personality traits. There’s a certain pureness, a lack of artifice to his face right now that makes him wonder about the other times. He feels the corners of his mouth tilt up. After all, it’s one of his own driving forces.

“Sorry to disappoint,” Tony says. “But that’s proprietary information.”

“Of course,” Parker says, settling himself back in his seat properly, but obviously with reluctance. The fervid expression on his face when he looks at Tony hasn’t faded yet, and Tony thinks he could get used to it. “My apologies. I didn’t mean to pry.”

Without a thought for propriety, or the numerous waiters watching over them, Tony reaches across the table to catch Parker’s fingers in his own as they are wrapping around the base of his wine glass.

“Never apologize for curiosity, kid,” he says. “Not to me.”

Across the table, Parker swallows thickly, and Tony can’t help but follow the motion with his eyes, down the pale column to the hollow of his throat. The moment is interrupted by Coulson clearing his throat pointedly, and the waiters moving in to replace the fish with a main course of Duck confit paired with a deep purple pinot noir.

Tony pulls back reluctantly, and Parker lets out a little huff of breath that he thinks he could try to interpret for days.

By his side, Coulson is smoothly redirecting the conversation along the path he wants it to go.

“What did you do during the war, Mr. Reilly?” he’s asking.

“Nothing of use,” Parker says. “I was in school.”

“Educational deferment?” Coulson asks. “That’s unusual. You must have been studying something important.”

“Oh, not really,” Parker says, self-deprecatingly. “Reading, writing, arithmetic. Your old standards. I’m awfully glad I can pass for a little older, but I’m only 21, 22 in August. I must have been, what, 13 when we finally got involved?”

Tony chokes on a mouthful of wine, and catches what must be an equally shocked look on Coulson’s face. It can’t be true, obviously. They both know Parker’s war record. He’s got to be at least 25. Probably older, because what kind of 18-year-old could pull off what he supposedly did? But looking at him, without that knowledge, it’s entirely believable that he really is that young. It’s unsettling. For Tony, 21 was nearly half a lifetime ago. 

“Mon bebe,” Wanda says, cheerily enough. But Tony catches a flash of something akin to murder in her green eyes, and he sincerely hopes never to be on the receiving end of that particular look. 

Parker, for his part, seems at least aware of the tension he’s caused around the table, if unsure of the cause. He carefully sets down his knife and fork, wipes his lips with his napkin before placing it back in his lap.

“It’s not that I didn’t want to join up,” he says. “I did, more than anything. Even before we were involved. My uncle Ben would have. He would have been the first in line at the recruitment office. And I wanted to do right by his legacy. Tried a few times, but none of the doctors quite bought it.” 

“He died?” Tony asks.

Parker nods. 

“There was this Nazi rally at Madison Square Gardens,” he says, eyes taking on a faraway look. “They called it a pro-American rally or some bullshit – pardon my French – but everybody knew what it really was. My Uncle Ben, his mother was Jewish. We still celebrated Shabbat every Friday up until he died. And he wasn’t the type to let something like that go unanswered anyway. He went down there as part of a counter protest. I was supposed to go with him that morning. He, um, he said it would be a good civics lesson for me.”

He pauses, smiles warmly at the thought. Tony suspects there are an uncounted number of civics lessons in his past.

“But I decided I’d rather skip all that,” Parker continues. “Spend the day down at the park with my friend Ned. I’ll … I’ll never forget how disappointed he looked. It’s because of me that he was alone when that gang of bastards found him after the rally. He still had his protest sign with him. I c-can’t help but think they wouldn’t have done it if I had been there. If they had had to stop and question it for just a second because a little kid was there, you know? But instead I had to go down to the station the next day with Aunt May to identify the body.”

“Jesus,” Tony whispers. And he knows, he knows the kid is lying, at least in part – about his age, about his time during the war. But this, this is a story he can’t doubt. If it’s a lie, then Peter Parker is the best damn actor since the invention of theater.

The kid lowers his head for a moment to collect himself, then raises it to look at Tony. His mouth quirks in a bitter parody of a smile.

“I don’t think I’ll ever forgive myself for that,” he says, with an odd lightness. It’s as though he has to keep a certain distance from it. “He would have fought, harder than anybody. And I couldn’t even …”

He trails off, seems to notice for the first time the effect he’s had on the rest of the table. Wanda has his left hand bundled into both of hers, squeezing tightly, and part of Tony wishes he could do the same. 

“I’m sorry,” the kid says. “I don’t even know why I said all that. I guess it’s just been on my mind lately. He always said we had a responsibility, because we were American, because we had all this freedom and power, to stand up for the little guy. I wish I’d learned that lesson a little sooner.”

The whole table is pin-drop quiet. Parker bites at his lip. He looks around for someone to change the subject. 

“Mr. Coulson,” he says, finally. “I wondered …”

But Coulson is holding up a hand to stop him.

“You know, young man, I’m just realizing no one ever calls me by my name anymore. It’s always Coulson at work, of course. And Stark here just calls me agent most of the time. You’ll call me Phil, though, won’t you?”

A grin spreads over Tony’s face because that is definitely the closest Coulson will ever get to saying Tony was right about something.

“Of course, Phil,” Parker says, warmly. “And I hope you’ll call me … Ben.”

It’s impossible for Tony to miss the hitch in his voice just before the name, and equally impossible to tell whether it’s the lie or the story he just told that’s responsible for it.

“I’d be honored, Ben,” Coulson replies smoothly.

After that, they wander back to safer topics, and the waiters bring out a cheese and fruit plate followed by a rich chocolate soufflé served with a whiskey caramel sauce as well as cups of coffee and glasses of brandy. 

Apparently, Parker has a sweet tooth, based on the noises he makes while he eats. He’s got his eyes closed and a blissed-out expression on his face as he eats a spoonful. As he opens his eyes, mouth still wrapped around the spoon, he seems to catch on to the fact that Tony’s watching the proceedings with perhaps too much interest. 

“What?” he asks. “Do I have something on my face?”

“No, I’m just wondering if you’d like some time alone with the soufflé?” Tony says. “It seems like you’re having a very intimate moment.” 

“Well, Mr. Stark, chocolate soufflé and I are in a very serious, committed relationship,” the kid replies. “I don’t want you to think I’m a cad or anything.” 

“So you say, Mr. Reilly,” Tony replies. “But how do I know you don’t chase after every gateau or Napoleon that crosses your path?

“You’ll just have to trust me,” Parker replies. 

“If only I could.”

They finish the evening watching the lights from the yachts out in the bay reflecting on the now inky blue water, and Tony orders a round of French 75s for the table. He’s got a fairly high tolerance, but the bright burst of lemon, gin and champagne on top of all the wine from the meal leaves him on the edge of tipsy. 

He leans back in his chair, warmth suffusing his chest, and lets his feet bump against the kid’s. Feeling full of mischief, Tony rubs the insole of his foot up against Parker’s ankle, watching him blink a little in shock, and then tilt his head to the side to look in confusion at Tony.

Tony moves foot back and mimics the questioning look on Parker’s face, all perfect innocence.

*

Peter could have sworn for one hot second that Tony Stark is trying to play footsie with him, but then the man raises an eyebrow at him in innocent confusion, and Peter feels the color rise to his cheeks again in embarrassment at the very thought. He looks away and drains his cocktail glass, bubbles from the champagne tickling the roof of his mouth.

It’s Wanda who eventually breaks up the party, clearing her throat and rising.

“My apologies, gentlemen,” she says. “But I’ve got work in the morning, and I really must be going.”

“I’ll go with you,” Coulson offers, pulling her chair out for her. “Make sure you get a taxi. They’ll be hard to snag at this hour.”

Peter puts up a minimal protest, but soon enough they’re leaving him alone with Stark on the terrace. It is late, nearing midnight, and Peter’s had too much wine. He feels himself blinking lazily, eyes closed for entirely too long on each blink. It’s incredibly dangerous to let himself get this comfortable, he knows. But for some reason he’s struggling to shake the calm that has overtaken him. 

“Be a gentleman,” Stark says from across the table. “Escort me to my room.”

Peter doesn’t even think to question the oddity of the request, just nods slowly and rises. The dining room is mostly empty as they wind their way through the abandoned tables, Stark’s hand warm on Peter’s lower back, guiding him. There are still a few determined couples clinging to each other on the dance floor while the band plays “Verlaine,” and the band leader sings, soft and warm, about being blown away from his love like a leaf on the wind.

When the get to the elevator, Stark lets his hand fall from Peter’s back, but doesn’t move any further away from him.

“You know,” he says. “That suit looks even better on you than I imagined it would, and I’ve got an impressive imagination.”

Peter shakes his head in consternation.

“You’ve got quite the talent,” he replies. “Should I be concerned that you’re watching me avidly enough to guess my measurements that closely?” 

“That depends entirely on whether or not you’ve got anything worth hiding, kid.”

The low rumble of his voice rolls through Peter’s body even with the distance between them. He tugs on the sleeves of his jacket, nervously, and bites his lip.

“You don’t have any secrets, though, do you Mr. Reilly?” Stark asks, pining him with a look. “I bet you’re an open book.”

“Open book,” Peter echoes, thankful to be saved from more as the elevator dings open to their floor.

He’s got enough handle on his manners to hold his arm out to keep the door open as Stark exits, then walks him in the direction of his room. 

“I must thank you for dinner, Mr. Stark,” he says, as they stand in front of the man’s door. “It was … An experience.”

“Oh, you’re very welcome,” Stark replies, as he unlocks his room, and swings the door open. “I very much hope it won’t be a one-time experience. Decent dinner companions are hard to come by.”

“I am at your disposal, Mr. Stark,” Peter says. 

“Is that so?” Stark asks, turning to Peter with one eyebrow raised in question.

“Of course, sir.”

A soft smile plays at Stark’s eyes, not quite reaching his mouth.

“Well then.” 

Before he can think, or protest, Stark has wrapped a hand around Peter’s tie and pulled him forward in a stumble. 

Then his lips are capturing Peter’s in a kiss. Entirely outside of his own volition, Peter feels his eyes sink closed. It’s a soft press of lips, warm and easy. But the warmth is undercut by the scrape of beard against Peter’s cheek, the zap he feels when Stark darts his tongue out to tease tentatively at the seam of Peter’s lips, but then retracts it just a quickly. 

Peter sighs into the embrace, feels Stark smile against his lips. And then just as quickly as it started, it’s over, and Peter hears a quiet click.

When he flutters his eyes open, he finds himself staring at the white door with its heavy gold numbers above the peephole, Stark having disappeared inside. He blinks rapidly at the shock of it.

Brain entirely unable to process any of the last ten minutes, Peter shakes his head softly and stumbles over to his own room on shaky legs.

 _What?_ He thinks. And then, _What?_

But no answer comes as he unlocks his own door, or as he carefully strips off the new suit and hangs in the wardrobe, or as he collapses into the softest bed he can ever remember sleeping in. 

He’s still got no answer as he closes his eyes and drifts off, because _honestly, what?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not sure how this is coming along as an actual story at all, but as a piece of vacation porn, I'm actually quite pleased with it. Enjoy!


	3. Chapter 3

The next morning finds Peter wearing a hole in the carpet in front of Stark’s door. He’d woken with a headache, a dry mouth, and a hot ball of shame roiling around in his gut. It’s an uncomfortable cocktail of indigestion and self-reproach.

He’s allowed himself, over the course of a single day, to lose his grip on the thread completely. Sure, he’s supposed to stay close to Tony Stark, but being close won’t matter much if he isn’t _fucking_ paying attention. If the real thief had chosen last night to strike, he would have been completely useless – kiss drunk, and actually drunk, and weighed down with five courses and a liter of wine to boot. 

Besides, he knows better than to let himself go amongst Americans. Being queer is illegal as well as considered a disease practically everywhere, but in America they take those things far more seriously than most. Goddamn puritans and their inescapable legacy.

Peter knows it's ridiculous, but he still has this vain hope that someday he’ll get to go home. To hug Aunt May close to him. To explain to her that he did it all to make Ben proud. But he can’t ever do that if he exposes himself by being caught in a compromising position with some American playboy.  

His goal, then, has to be to shut this down – their little flirtation, the thing that makes Stark think it’s ok to kiss him – while still remaining close enough to catch his thief. That is a very narrow rope to walk, even for someone as steady on their feet as Peter. 

He’s still working up his nerve to actually knock on the door, when a bellhop pushing a now-empty room service cart barges out of the door and slams into Peter’s ankles. There’s a crash of plates and a tangle of limbs, and the poor man pushing the cart looks panicked and starts offering abject apologies. The commotion, of course, leads to Stark wandering out of his bathroom in a burgundy silk dressing gown, face lathered in shaving foam, to find Peter loitering outside his door trying to calm the increasingly hysterical bellhop.

He takes one look at the scene and throws his head back to laugh. When he’s finished, and Peter has calmed the bellhop with apologies and a few francs, Stark jerks his head, indicating that Peter should enter, and heads back into the en suite.

The set of rooms is significantly larger than Peter’s already ridiculously spacious ones. An actual, hand-to-God, chandelier is hanging from the ceiling in the sitting area, which is done up in shades of pristine white and gold. French doors have been opened up onto an enormous sun-dappled balcony, gauzy white curtains wafted into the room by the fresh sea breeze.

There’s a table set out on the balcony with a silver coffee service, steam rising gently from the spout of the coffee pot. Along with it sits a basket of flaky pain au chocolate, a glass bowl mounded high with perfect spheres of multi-colored melon glistening like gemstones, and two plates covered with silver cloches.

“I was hoping to lure you over here for breakfast,” Stark calls out to him. “Imagine my delight to see you lurking outside my door.” 

Peter … Peter needs a little more fortification before he has this conversation. He walks out onto the balcony, and pours himself a cup of coffee, adds a splash of cream. The first sip is heavenly – rich and perfectly bitter. Just the friendly slap in the face he needs. 

After he drains the cup, he forces himself back inside, following the sound of Stark’s voice to the doorway of the bathroom.

“ … I mean, I don’t know what they were all expecting anyway. I said it was a prototype, and a flying car is gonna have some kinks your first go-round, right?”

“I remember the flying car!” Peter says, excitedly. “World’s Fair was practically in my backyard that year. I mean, sure it only flew for a second, but it flew. I saw it with my own eyes.”

Stark startles, turns, wiping the last of the shaving cream from his now perfectly groomed face. He raises an eyebrow at Peter.

“Have I been having a conversation with myself for the past five minutes?” he asks.

Peter tries and fails to keep a grin from his face. 

“I imagine that’s not an unfamiliar predicament for you, sir.”

Stark’s expression is half chagrined, half delighted.

“My Aunt Peg is gonna love you,” he says.

It’s not the response Peter is expecting. His stomach does a little flip. That’s not how this ends, he reminds himself. He doesn’t get to play happy families, or anything of the sort. The best case scenario right now is that he ends up back in his old life, scraping by and giving English lessons to bored French children. And even that seems a long way off.

“I’m not really the type that maiden aunts approve of,” he protests.

“Nonsense,” Stark replies. “Upstanding young man, promising career, quick with a snappy comeback? She’ll be delighted." 

Peter sags against the doorframe, lowers his eyes to study the grout between the tile. Now he has to say something. This is going too far.

“Mr. Stark, I’m afraid there may be some misunderstanding between us after last night …”

“Oh?” Stark’s tone is just impossible for Peter to parse right now. 

“Yes, I … Please understand that I admire you very much, and all of your work. The advancements you’ve made with the electronic brain alone … If all I’ve read is true, you can’t be more than a decade away from a functional AI …”

“Oh, sweetheart, if only you knew …” 

“I’d like to pick your brain for days,” Peter continues. 

And it honestly isn’t his fault that he says it like most men would say ‘I’d like to keep you in bed for days.’ That’s just how it comes out. He takes a deep breath and muddles forward.

“But while I’m extremely flattered by your attention, I need you to know, I’m not … That is, I wouldn’t … Can’t really … I’m not a homosexual Mr. Stark.”

There. Can’t get more straightforward than that. Or much crasser, but sometimes the situation calls for crass.

When he dares raise his eyes to check for a reaction, Stark is giving him a lopsided grin.

“Well, that’s ok, kid,” he says. “Neither am I.” 

“Oh,” Peter says. “Oh. I-I’m sorry I …”

“Hedonist is my preferred term,” Stark says as he turns back to the mirror and applies his aftershave, the scent of bergamot and leather suffusing itself through the room. “For the record. In that I’m not particular about a person’s … Well, particulars, when I decide to take them to bed. Pleasure is pleasure, am I right?”

Peter feels the heat rising slowly up his neck. This conversation is decidedly not going in the direction he intended.

“That’s not what I …”

“Relax, kid,” Stark says with a put-upon sigh. “Teasing. I get the picture. No touching.”

“Er … Right,” Peter says. 

“I can handle that,” the other man replies. “I promise that your honor is safe with me. But there’s no reason we can’t be friends, right?” 

“No,” Peter says. “No, there isn’t?”

“Exactly,” Stark replies. “So we’re all good then. I mean, provided you don’t mind me looking. Man’s only got so much self control.”

Peter shakes his head, and feels himself flushing a little more.

“You’re ridiculous.” 

“But you’re still here,” Stark says, eyes crinkling in a mischievous grin. “Which means, I think, that you like a little ridiculous.”

“Maybe,” Peter allows, softly. “Maybe I do.”

Stark claps his hands together, the sound echoing through the en suite.

“Ok,” he says. “Breakfast first. I’ll even let you pick my brain, kid. Provided you’re gentle. Then, we are going sunbathing. No. Don’t protest. It’s not that I’m not digging the whole skin like porcelain thing you’re sporting, but if you don’t get a little sun on your cheeks, no one will believe you’ve even been on holiday.”

He rambles on as he leads the way out to the breakfast table on the balcony. Before, he probably would have taken Peter’s arm, or guided him with a hand on his back. But he’s keeping his word, which warms Peter’s heart just a little. 

Over salmon eggs Benedict and an entire pot of coffee, they argue the symbolists versus connectionist camps of electronic brain theory. Voices are raised. Positions staked out. 

“You can’t disregard the make-up of the human brain,” Peter says, fist coming down on the table, making their china coffee cups rattle dangerously. “It’s literally the only working model we have for where we want to go. That’s like trying to build something, but refusing to look at the plans.” 

“I never look at the plans,” Stark says. 

Peter snorts. 

“Of course not.”

“You can’t rely too much on the expected,” Stark goes on. “Not with something like this. You’re like one of those guys who expect aliens to look like people, but green, and speak some semblance of human language. The universe is just … Weirder than that. Gotta think outside the box, kid.”

“You don’t just want to think outside the box, you want to stomp on the box, and then throw it out in the dumpster.”

“You understand me just so well that it’s a little scary,” Stark intones. 

So the argument ends, not with any sort of agreement, but with them both grinning wildly at each other like children. 

*

Half an hour later, Tony’s in the lobby of the hotel again, waiting on Parker to show up. It’s beginning to be a habit, waiting on Peter Parker. A very clichéd corner of Tony’s mind tells him that he’s been doing it all his life.

The kid’s obviously trying hard to put a little distance between them, and failing pretty spectacularly at it. Tony doesn’t think he really meant a word of his little speech this morning. He likes to think he’s pretty adept at reading physical cues, and Parker is interested in more than just Tony’s brain. He’d bet his fortune on it. 

Their kiss last night had been a quick flicker of a thing, but the heat in it had been unmistakable. Tony had stayed up most of the night working on a little side project inspired by the kid, mind playing the embrace over and over on a loop – the way Parker had resisted for only a split second before melting into it, the chocolate and champagne taste that still lingered on his lips.

Still, you can’t force these things, and Tony is capable of a little tact, when he really puts his mind to it. He forgets sometimes that there’s still a danger, for many people, in these sorts of assignations. Tony knows his privilege, ok? His money and name protect him from most of that.

The newspaper men in the city know better than to run any of the myriad photos they no doubt have of him wrapped around beautiful young men. Getting on the bad side of Stark Industries just isn’t in their interest, in the big picture. So it’s only the photos of him and his lady companions that get published, and the public at large remain ignorant that his tastes are far more diverse. 

But other people aren’t as immune from scrutiny. Even Tony hadn’t been as blasé about it until after his old man was gone. Howard Stark would not have taken well to his son being a pansy. 

But it’s terribly hard to remember all of the very good and sensible reasons to keep his hands to himself when Parker’s walking toward him in skin-tight black swimming trunks, towel thrown casually over his shoulder, bright and open smile on his face.

“You … Are not dressed for the beach,” the kid accuses.

Well, Tony can’t exactly do that anymore, can he? Not that Parker needs to know that. So instead of swim trunks, Tony is in a light linen suit, a pale pink button-up, and sunglasses. He’s got the jacket slung over one shoulder, sleeves rolled up to the elbow for a more casual look. But it’s still not exactly beachwear. 

“Oh, I’m too old for sunbathing,” Tony retorts. “I leave that to the young and beautiful.” 

Parker rolls his eyes.

 “If you’re fishing for compliments, I won’t be stroking your ego,” he says, walking past Tony and out of the hotel toward the beach. 

“You’re trying to test whether or not I can behave myself aren’t you?” Tony replies, following as though he’s a puppy being pulled on a lead. “Pop quizzes are no fair, you know.” 

They settle on a pair of blue lounge chairs under a large striped umbrella, and Tony motions one of the hovering waiters over to order them a round of Aperol spritzes, mostly to distract himself from Parker applying sun lotion. _Jesus._ He really should have thought this idea through more thoroughly.

The drinks arrive in short order, and Parker lays himself out on his stomach, head resting on his folded arms. Tony crosses his legs, leans back and watches the horizon, the delicate white sails of boats moving slowly across the water with the wind. 

“I’m surprised you have the time for the beach,” Parker says, taking a sip of his drink. “I thought you’d be busy with meetings for your conference.” 

Tony can’t help but chuckle at that.

“Oh, I’m not allowed at those sorts of meetings anymore,” he says. “Apparently I ‘Lack appropriate diplomatic tact.’ Whatever that means. So Coulson’s handling the preliminaries. I’m just here for the big song and dance on Saturday.”

“Song and dance?” Parker asks, casually. Maybe too casually, now Tony thinks about it. A tingle of something runs down his spine. He can sense the purpose behind the inquiry. 

“They say they don’t want dramatics, but that’s never quite the truth,” he says, avoiding the question Parker really seems to be asking.

“I have to say, I’m a bit confused as to why you’re here at all,” Parker says, blinking those honey brown eyes slowly up at Tony. And he knows, of course he knows, the effect they have. “I mean, I know you make weapons, but I’m not sure how that translates to required attendance at a NATO conference. Shouldn’t they leave all that stuff to the ambassadors and such?”

Tony lowers his sunglasses a few centimeters so that he can look at Parker over the frames. 

“I know I said I’d let you pick my brain, kid,” he says. “But I’m afraid all of that’s classified. Not my secrets to tell, you know?” 

“Oh,” Parker says. “Oh, of course. I’m sorry. Sticking my nose in again …” 

“It’s fine,” Tony says with a shrug. “I appreciate a healthy curiosity. Might want to flip, kid. You’re getting a little red.”

“Curse of the pale,” Parker mutters as he turns over onto his back. 

“You poor, delicate thing.”

 The kid grins and sticks his tongue out at him.

“This was your idea,” he protests.

“Yes, well, I didn’t realize you would turn into a langoustine as soon as you saw the light of the sun. My mother was Italian. I’m not used to the pale, Eastern European complexion.”

“Or that of us poor American office workers.”

“Right …” 

Tony shakes his glass to hear the tinkle of the ice in the bottom, and indicate to the waiter that he’s ready for another. He watches in the periphery as Parker reapplies sunscreen, then stops partway through rubbing the cream onto the tips of his ears, squinting out at the water. A little wrinkle forms between his eyebrows.

“I think,” Parker says. “I think I’m gonna go for a swim.”

He stands up, then looks down at Tony with a hand shaded over his eyes, as though about to ask him to join. But then he takes in Tony’s ensemble, fresh drink, and general attitude of indolence and clearly thinks better. 

“Back soon,” he says. “Just need to cool off.”

Tony watches as he splashes into the water then free strokes smoothly out to the little floating platform the hotel has placed a couple dozen yards out into the water. The only other resident of the platform at the moment is a tall man in chemical green swim trunks. Tony suppresses a little surge of jealousy when the two seem to immediately strike up a conversation. He’s got a well-muscled chest covered over in a thatch of hair, a gold medallion hanging around his neck, overlong brown hair and about a day’s worth of stubble on his cheeks.

Appealing, maybe, in a Eurotrash kind of way, Tony thinks ungenerously as he watches the two converse. There’s something about the body language though, the way green and oily leans forward and Parker leans back, that he’s not too keen on.

When Parker makes to leave the platform, so does his new friend, and the two make their way together into shore, and then up to the changing tents. And, ok, maybe all the spy versus spy stuff has been getting to Tony, because he just can’t help but go over and try his hand at a little eavesdropping.

It isn’t even that hard, is the thing. Either Parker is way out of practice, or this isn’t one of the things he thinks he needs to hide, because they’re talking at full volume, and Parker’s voice has an edge of testiness to it. 

“I don’t know what you want with an older model anyway,” Eurotrash is saying. He’s got an America accent, though, which kind of puts the kibosh of Tony’s theory of things. “I’d go for something younger, if I were you, Peter. It’ll last you longer, and make for a smoother ride.”

Tony grits his teeth. Thirty-nine is not that old, no matter what this oily bastard has to say about it. Who even is he? 

“Jesus, Q, will you listen to yourself?” Parker replies. “I’m not looking for a ride. I met him yesterday. We’re just doing the Americans abroad solidarity thing. There’s nothing more than that going on.”

“Does he know that?”

“He does, as it turns out.” 

“You don’t need him, you know,” the mystery man says. “Your rich boy. If you’d let me help you …”

The more he talks, the angrier Tony gets, until he can’t help but intervene. He puts on his sunniest smile and pokes his head past the side of the changing tent he’s been hiding behind.

“Mr. Reilly,” he says cheerily.

“Mr. Stark.”

Parker looks stricken as soon as he sees him. His eyes are wide with a look in them that tells Tony he’s making a series of calculations. Trying to figure out how much Tony heard, no doubt, and how much he should admit to. 

“You left your drink,” Tony says, tinkling his own glass in front of Parker’s face as an acceptable if not terribly convincing cover. 

“Thank you,” Parker says, pausing awkwardly to take a too-large gulp of the cocktail. He coughs on the burn of the alcohol – the bartenders know by now to mix Tony’s drinks at double strength, a consideration for which he pays well. 

“May I introduce you to Mr. Quentin Beck,” Parker says, apparently deciding that pretending Tony heard nothing is the best strategy. “We met during my swim. Turns out we have a few connections in common back in the city. Mr. Beck, Mr. Tony Stark.”

Tony reaches out to shake the man’s hand. If he squeezes it just a fraction too hard, well, neither of them are going to admit to it.

“Just met, and already talking like old friends,” Tony says with an expression that’s all flashing teeth, looking back and forth between Parker and Beck. “Don’t you just love that about Americans abroad? It’s like you never meet a stranger.”

“I doubt you’re a stranger to anybody, Mr. Stark,” Beck replies, scooting surreptitiously closer to Parker. “Your reputation precedes you.”

Tony has to admire the English this guy puts on his words, just that little twist that makes it an insult.

“Well, thus is the burden of having a building named after you,” Tony says with a little shrug. “What do you do, Mr. Beck?”

“I work in film.”

“Hmm,” Tony says, deliberately looking the man up and down. “Work behind the camera must be so rewarding.”

Beck’s face is shifting into something outright nasty just as Parker interjects.

“Unfortunately,” he says. “Mr. Beck was just telling me he has an appointment with the tennis pro this morning. Oh, look at the time!”

Parker glances down quickly at a watchless wrist, and then pulls at Beck’s elbow.

“You wanted me to show you where the tennis courts are, didn’t you? I’ll just do that now.”

“Er … Yes,” Beck replies, confused at the sudden shift.

Then Parker is hauling him across the sand back towards the hulking white edifice of the hotel, waving back to Tony.

“I’ll see you later, Mr. Stark!” he calls.

Tony tilts his head in curiosity as he watches them cross the long expanse of pale sand. It’s been a long time since he felt such an intense stab of jealousy and distaste. That, combined with the reminder that he still doesn’t know quite what Parker’s angle is, makes him feel testy and jittery.

Back home, he would go down to the lab and rip one of his cars apart, then rebuild it, or have Happy meet him down at the gym so they can go a few rounds and knock each other about. But he can’t do any of that here, so he settles for another drink and flirting outrageously and publicly with one of the American actresses who practically lives here.

Rumor is, she’s got some sort of thing going with the Prince of Monaco, but that doesn’t stop them from putting on a little show for the adoring public. Just as he’s giving her what he has to say is an impressive smolder, he catches sight of Parker out of the corner of his eye. He’s set up at the other end of the open-air bar with a bemused expression on his face.

Tony wraps things up with a kiss to the lady’s fingers and a low “A bientôt,” then makes his way over to Parker. 

“Say, was that …” the kid asks as he approaches, craning his head over Tony’s shoulder to catch a last glimpse of a blonde head.

“It was.”

“I’ve seen all her films,” he says. “They say she’s going to marry a prince, but I bet you could persuade her otherwise.”

“Not so sure of that,” Tony says, a bit ruefully. “I seem to be doing nothing but striking out this trip.”

“You, Mr. Stark? I wouldn’t believe it for a second.”

“Hmm,” Tony says, reaching for a bowl of olives a little ways down the bar and popping a couple into his mouth. “Did your _friend_ manage to find the tennis courts?”

Parker nods, ignoring the emphasis Tony puts on friend, if he hears it. It’s not jealousy. It’s not. Tony’s just concerned is all. Something about the guy rubs him the wrong way. Maybe it was just that he called Tony old. 

“I hope I didn’t pull you away from your starlet,” the kid says. “I just wanted to take my leave. Wanda recommended a few villas that are open for public viewings, and I’d like to get a look at the countryside while I’m here.”

“Sightseeing?”

Curiouser and curiouser. Tony’s not about to let an opening like that pass him by, not when it’s obvious Parker is up to something. Whether or not it’s outright thievery remains to be seen. Tony really hopes it’s not. If nothing else, he thought the kid was more original than that. 

“Not really the type to spend my whole vacation lounging at the beach,” Parker is saying. “Too much relaxation stresses me out.” 

“Fantastic,” Tony says, smoothly. “I’ll come with.”

“Oh, no,” the kid protests. “No, I couldn’t impose on any more of your time. I’ll just be going around gawping like the worst type of tourist. I’m sure you’ve better things to do.”

“Nonsense,” Tony says. “I bet you don’t even have a car. We’ll take mine. No better way to see the countryside.”

“Really I can take the bus …”

“Don’t insult me, Mr. Reilly,” Tony says with a dramatic roll of his eyes. “I’ll have the valet bring the car ‘round. Meet you out front in half an hour?”

He doesn’t give the kid much time to protest. He just pops a few more olives into his mouth, brine bursting over his tongue, and then hustles off to make preparations, tossing a wave back at Parker as he goes.

*

Peter’s jaw nearly unhinges when the car pulls up in front of the hotel, honking at him and shaking him out of his looping thoughts about Q and his inability to take no for an answer.

It’s the combination of a chance at money and the challenge of Peter telling him no the first time that keeps him coming back. Must be. But there’s something else that keeps niggling at the back of his brain. It’s like a piece of food caught between his teeth – barely there but incredibly annoying. He can’t seem to catch hold of it.

Then all of those thoughts are temporarily banished as Stark leans back in the driver’s seat of a candy apple red Jaguar XK 120 convertible, all long lines and graceful curves. So much for being unobtrusive. Peter already knows that subtle isn’t Tony Stark’s style, but there are degrees to everything, and he wasn’t quite expecting this. 

So much for unnoticed reconnoitering. Wanda told him yesterday that the culmination of the NATO conference will be a two-day summit at the weekend at a villa in the mountains. If it were Peter planning a heist, that’s when he’d do it – with everyone gathered together, plenty of distractions and social engagements to pull people away.

He hadn’t planned on company while he appraises entry and exit points and makes notes on security. It could be helpful, however. His friends at the French secret service will never be expecting their quarry to be out and about with an American billionaire. He’s probably just justifying to himself, but Stark actually makes for a decent cover. No one’s going to question much of anything he does, or the people with him.

Stark lowers his sunglasses and flashes Peter a warm smile. It ties his stomach up in delicious knots. When he leans a little on his horn, a pair of bellhops come rushing out carrying a large wicker basket between them. They manage, after several goes, to lodge it into the minuscule boot of the car.

“I had the kitchens pack us a picnic,” Stark says, leaning over to open the passenger side door for Peter. When Peter gets in, their knees graze over the gear shift before he can settle into position. The hum of idling engine jostles through his bones.

“So,” Stark asks. “Where to?” 

“I thought we’d start at the Villa Leopolda?” Peter stutters over the pronunciation of the name to make it all sound less planned. “I think that’s the one Wanda said I shouldn’t miss.” 

“Alright,” Stark says, obligingly. “There’s a map in glove box. You wanna navigate?”

They make their way down Cannes coast road for a bit, but then take a turning, and start heading up, up into the hills. The road they’re on is a dizzying squiggle on the map laid out over Peter’s knees. The effect is even more pronounced as Tony drives. 

He handles the car like it’s an extension of his body, shifting almost imperceptibly between gears and taking the hairpin turnings of the road at a steady, consistent speed of just a little bit too fast. 

The wind whips through Peter’s hair, no doubt turning it into a tangle of messy curls. He can feel and smell the change in location and elevation in the air – first heavy and redolent of brine so near the sea but then lighter and cooler as they ascend.

Peter smells lavender from the carefully-cultivated purple fields of the herb they pass. When they get higher up, the scents of wild thyme and pungent cypress trees takes over. The whole time, the ocean winks and sparkles at them on their right, a brilliant cerulean.

They don’t speak during the drive, can’t really over the roar of the engine. Instead they communicate with little touches. Peter tugs on the elbow of Stark’s jacket and points when they need to change direction. Stark grips Peter’s knee under the cover of the map and gestures with his head whenever he notices a sight Peter shouldn’t miss – a herd of sheep crowding dangerously close to a stone fence and threatening to spill out onto the road, a lemon grove where the bright yellow fruit weigh tree branches down almost to collapse, a jutting outcropping of stone with a near perfect keyhole opening worn through by wind and the slow drip of water.

Peter is intimately familiar with this country, but it feels different looking at it with the warm press of Stark’s hand upon his knee and the crinkle of delight around his eyes. The light seems more golden, the colors more saturated. It’s like some medieval painting being restored –  cleared of centuries of soot and grime to reveal its true hues.

He shakes his head ruefully at his own poetical nonsense, but he doesn’t pull away from the touch, and he doesn’t stop drinking it all in.

When they take another turning, a small copse of tall cypress trees gives way to the façade of the villa. Its walls are yellow plaster with bright white trim being slowly overtaken by a creep of ivy. Its red tile roof is low-slung but for two turrets on either end of the enormous house.

Stark finally slows the car as they turn into the long white crushed stone driveway so as not to kick up too much dust.

“Impressive, right?” he says to Peter, hopping out of the car. “King Leopold had it built it for one of his mistresses. She must have been quite a lady.”

He raises his eyebrows to Peter in a question, and Peter juts his chin out to where the gardens stretch green and luxurious. Best to appraise entry points and outside security first, he thinks.

“One of his mistresses?” he prompts Tony as they walk. 

They pass under an arbor of soft purple crepe myrtle out onto the wide expanse of the lawn where the azalea bushes are coming into their full bloom in a riot of reds and pinks and sunset-orange bougainvillea spills out of giant terra cotta pots. 

“Apparently there were a long line of them,” Stark says. “And a line of houses up and down the Riviera coast to match.”

Peter’s eyes flick avidly over the line of the red tiled roof. It’s set at a low incline – simplest thing in the world to navigate after you get up there. And the crumbling plaster and vines growing up the sides of the villa create plenty of footholds. Peter’s copycat, whoever they may be, clearly has no problem scaling walls. 

“Christ, I’ve never understood that,” he says, absently as they walk.

There are silent guards in simple khaki uniforms standing around the perimeter of the property. It would be difficult to sneak in after hours, certainly. But at a party with hundreds of guests, there would be a million avenues to gain access as either a guest or a servant.

“What, real estate as a method of seduction?” Stark asks. “I’ll grant you, it’s not everyone’s choice. Most men go for jewelry, but I guess a king has to up the ante a little.”

“No,” Peter shakes his head. “No, more the multiple mistresses.”

Tony laughs. 

“Oh, does the idea of multiple women in your bed not appeal? I have to tell you, kid, that is shocking information to me.”

The purposeful smirk in his tone turns Peter’s attention from counting the number of windows on this side of the villa. He rolls his eyes. 

“Multiple anybodies, actually,” he responds. “It all just sounds so … Exhausting.”

He lets out a long sigh. 

“Not to denigrate your hedonistic lifestyle or anything,” he tacks on, not actually wanting to insult Stark. “It’s just not for me.”

“Oh no,” Stark says. “You’re one of those.” 

“One of what?” Peter asks, feeling vaguely insulted, though he’s not sure yet why. 

“A romantic,” Stark says. “You’re a one true love, forsaking all others, better or worse romantic.”

“I’m really not.”

Peter thinks about quick fumbles in dark alleyways with men who’s names he’d never even known, the occasional longer affair carried out in secret over stolen afternoons. None of it can possibly square with any of the words Stark just threw at him. It stings, just a little bit.

“I believe you are,” Stark responds. “Just think of how quickly you and Mr. Beck hit it off this morning. Instant connections like that don’t happen every day.” 

Peter turns to Stark, hands shoved into his pockets, and raises an eyebrow at him.

“That’s not jealously talking,” Stark says. “I’m just trying to encourage you not to lose heart.” 

“I suppose actually being a romantic is the worst fate you can imagine,” Peter says.

“It does seem a rather dire state of being, if you don’t mind me saying.” 

It’s a bit too much protest, Peter thinks. He’s beginning to get a picture of who Tony Stark is, beneath the swagger and posturing.

“You know, my aunt is a nurse back in Queens.”

“Alright,” Stark says. “Changing the subject. Message received.” 

“Not exactly,” Peter says. “Back during the war, she trained battlefield nurses. Got all kinds of girls from across the country. It was their first time in the city, surrounded by young men in uniform.” 

“Been there,” Stark says. “Temptations galore.” 

“Yes, that’s what the new nurses found as well. But my Aunt May _was_ the romantic type, you see. Met my uncle when she was 18 and never looked at anyone else.”

“I admire that kind of decisiveness.”

“Hm, so do I,” Peter says. “The thing is, Mr. Stark, I think you could use the same advice that my Aunt gave to her charges.”

“And what advice is that?”

“She used to tell them that instead of chasing after a different solider every night, what they really needed was two weeks alone with a good man at Niagara Falls.”

Something flashes deep in Stark’s eyes.

“Is that an offer?” he asks.

“Mr. Stark,” Peter says. “I have neither the time nor the inclination to give you what you really need.”

He walks on by himself past a lovely arrangement of irises, while Stark lags behind. When the other man eventually catches up, he’s wearing a chagrined almost smile. Inwardly, Peter curses himself. He shouldn’t encourage this. He shouldn’t flirt. He’s the one who said it had to stop. So why can’t he seem to control his tongue around this man?

They walk on in a surprisingly comfortable silence. Peter finishes counting windows, and is about to suggest they head inside when he spots something that makes the hairs all over his body stand on end.

What on earth is Adrian doing all the way up here? And what is Bucky doing with him, for that matter? They’re standing near the back entrance of the villa, speaking with a man in black tails who must be the butler for the property.

Bucky must feel Peter’s eyes on him, because he turns his head, and catches his glance. His eyes go wide when he recognizes Peter, and even wider when he sees who he’s with. Peter gives him a pleading look, and Bucky’s expression turns sour. 

Regardless of whether Bucky will hold his tongue, Adrian won’t if he sees him. The information Peter’s already managed to gather will have to be enough.

“What do you say we move on?” he says to Stark. “I’m starving. We could find a place to picnic.”

“I’ve got the perfect spot,” Stark replies.

It isn’t until they’re halfway to the car that he notices the rumpled, grey-suited DST agents hovering around the entrance of the villa grounds. Peter’s heart pounds in his ears. Someone has to have tipped them off, surely.

Peter keeps his head down as he walks toward the car, fighting with everything in him not to run or attract any undue attention. 

Stark opens Peter’s door for him this time before sliding in across from him.

“You feeling alright there, kid?”

“Fine,” Peter says, faintly. “I’m fine.” 

He watches the secret service agents from the corner of his eye. From a distance, he sees one of them pointing in their direction. _Shit._

“Uh-huh,” Stark says, clearly unconvinced.

He revs the engine of the Jag.

“Let’s see what this baby can do, huh?”

Before Peter can protest, they are peeling out across the long drive, sending a spray of gravel behind them.

If Stark was driving too fast before, it’s nothing compared to the speed he achieves now. The engine of the convertible hums as Stark opens it up as wide as it will go. Peter clings to his seat with a white-knuckled grip, certain that at any moment they’ll go careening off the edge of the road and onto the rocks below.

In the rearview mirror, Peter can see a black sedan, undoubtedly full of DST agents, following them at a distance as they climb upwards into the mountains.

Peter says nothing until Stark takes a particularly sharp turn at full speed, and the tires squeal and send up smoke as the rubber burns across the asphalt. 

“Slow down,” he orders then, breathless, transferring his left hand to grip Stark’s elbow instead. “You’re going to kill us.” 

“No can do, kid,” Stark replies, gently shaking Peter’s hand from its clutch. “If I slow down, they’ll catch us.”

“What?” Peter asks.

When he allows his gaze to be pulled from the edge of the cliff they are skating along the edge of, Stark’s eyes are on the road, but his face is alight with excitement.

“It’s my first car chase!” he shouts over the roar of the engine. “This is a big day for me!”

Peter does his best impression of a fish. 

“Hold onto your ass, kid!”

Peter doesn’t know how it’s possible, but the car speeds up. The distance between them and the black sedan grows longer and longer. They pass through a tiny village without slowing down, sending a group of chickens by the side of the road flying and clucking in alarm, and startling a herd of goats about to cross the road.

Behind them, Peter’s see the goats amble onto the road and settle there, just in time to stop the black Sedan to a dead halt. Bless their stubborn hearts, they refuse to move despite horn honking and shouting. He watches, heart lifting, as the car becomes a black dot and finally disappears as they make a few sharp turns.

“We lost them,” Peter says, tossing his head back onto the headrest in relief. “We actually lost them.” 

Stark lets out a whoop of excitement.

“I told ya, Pete,” he says with a wide grin. “Nothing to it.”

As though in slow motion, Peter feels the relieved smile fall from his face, and his muscles tense one by one. 

“What did you call me?” he says in a very small voice. 

“What, you’re not one of those people who can’t stand a nickname, are you? You aren’t going to make me call you Mr. Parker, are you?”

“That’s not my name,” Peter attempts. 

“Oh, come on now, kid,” Stark says. “I’m not stupid.”

He pulls the car over onto a promontory overlooking the Cannes bay. If he weren’t for the fear trickling through Peter’s veins, it would be a beautiful view – ocean sparkling and clear against the sandy shore, the red-tiled roofs of the city clustered together and creeping up the hillside.

Peter is quiet for a long moment, trying to figure out a way through this. But no matter what angle he takes it from, he doesn’t see any way it ends well for him.

“I don’t know who you think I am, Mr. Stark, but really …” 

“Peter Parker, The Spider. That’s you, isn’t it?” Stark interrupts. “I’m confident I’m not mistaken. I did see your file. Impressive stuff, by the way. Well, until you get to the treason.” 

“I am not the Spider,” Peter protests. “You’re really mistaking me for someone else.”

Stark completely ignores this lame attempt at a denial.

“You know, I’ve always been curious about the man who sold our nuclear secrets to the Russians.”

“I didn’t sell them,” Peter says, forcefully, his former denials forgotten in the face of this one truth.

His voice comes out in a harsh growl. Why should this, of all things, be the sticking point he chooses? He could have sold them. Wanda had certainly offered. But taking anything for what he was offering would have felt like taking blood money. It would have made the guilt that much worse. So he had given them away instead. 

“If I had sold them, I would be living in one of those fancy villas instead of in a fifth floor walk-up in a fishing village in the middle of nowhere.” 

“Fair enough,” Stark says. “Never seemed much like your style to me, anyway.”

That stops Peter short.

“You … You believe me?” he says.

“Yeah, Pete, I believe you.” 

The words allow Peter to take the first deep breath he’s managed since that wild chase started. He suddenly feels completely worn down. Stark seems to sense the sagging in Peter’s soul, because he gets out of the car and comes back with the picnic basket, which he nestles in between the two seats.

He uncorks a bottle of merlot and hands it over to Peter, who takes a long, fortifying swig.

“You’ll have to excuse my enthusiasm,” Stark says, passing Peter a sandwich tied up in brown paper. “I’ve never caught a spy before. It’s very invigorating.”

* 

The kid tensed up like a bowstring the second Tony said his name, which oddly hadn’t been Tony’s intention. He’d been running high on adrenaline. He mostly sticks to the lab these days, and he’s forgotten the euphoria that comes with escaping death and capture and all those nasty things.

Letting it all tumble out had been a mistake born of that unaccustomed thrill. He’d really wanted Peter to come clean himself. Now, instead of loose and euphoric like Tony, he’s tense and distraught. He’s clenching his hands together against the sandwich Tony gave him, and it can’t be doing the bread and cheese any favors. 

Slowly, Tony reaches out to take the sandwich back out of Peter’s clutching hands. He unties and unwraps it, then hands half of it back to Peter, and stuffs a big bite of the other half in his own mouth. 

Peter looks down confusedly at the sandwich in his hands, then back up at Tony with the same quizzical expression. He doesn’t take a bite.

“I’m not a spy anymore,” he insists, then: “Are you going to tell Phil?”

Tony winces. The next bit is not going to make the kid very happy. 

“Too late for that, I’m afraid,” he says. “But he did agree to hold off on calling in back up until we figured out what was going on with you.” 

“And you’re warning me now because …” 

Sighing like a petulant teenager, Tony leans back against the seat of the car so he can look directly at Peter. A beam of afternoon sunlight is illuminating his face like some medieval saint in a painting. 

“Look, you’ve got skills, kid,” he says. “I’ve seen the stuff you came up with in the field, and I told Coulson I want you for the SSR science division.”

“You may have missed it, Mr. Stark, but I happen to be a blacklisted ex-spy. SSR will not be offering me a job anytime soon.”

“I really wish you’d call me Tony …” 

“Mr. Stark,” Peter says, purposefully. “You cannot possibly believe that anyone at SSR wants to do anything with me but lock me up in a black site and extract as much Soviet intelligence from me as possible. Not that I have any.” 

“They might,” Tony insists. “If you bring the weapon plans you stole from the French with you.”

The laugh that chokes itself out of Peter’s throat is unmistakably bitter.  

“Seems like I’d be better off all around if I really had stolen those plans,” he says. “Unfortunately, it wasn’t me. I’ve been out of the game for five years. It was a set up.”

Tony perks up at that. He’d told Coulson it seemed odd that Peter would suddenly emerge from retirement like this.

“A set-up?” he asks. 

“Has to be someone familiar enough with my style to copy it,” Peter says. “They got most of the details right except …”

“Except?” Tony prompts.

“Except I would never have left that type of evidence behind,” and there’s just a hint of pride behind his tone when he says that.

“So you're here now to what? Clear your name? Catch the real thief?”

Peter nods.

“If anyone can do it, I can. I just want to go back to my old life, Mr. Stark. And make sure the other men from my unit don’t suffer for this. They … They’ve been through enough on my behalf.”

Tony roots around in the picnic basket for another brown paper package. When he unties it, it releases a heavenly scent of butter, lemon and vanilla into the air. Then he proffers the package of perfect shell-shaped, sugar-dusted Madeleines to Peter. The kid takes one gingerly from the package and chews it thoughtfully. Tony follows suit. 

“I am curious about one thing,” he says, in between bites.

“Oh?” Peter says. “And here I thought you had divined all my secrets, Mr. Stark.” 

“Hardly, but I like to think I’m getting there,” Tony says. “But, seriously. How much of that song and dance you gave us last night was true? It was very affecting in the moment, don’t get me wrong. I just had to wonder later if I’d been had like a grade A sucker.”

That little curious furrow is back in between Peter’s eyes. Looking at him this closely, Tony realizes that all the sun this morning has brought out a band of freckles across his nose. The effect is positively adorable.

“It was all true,” Peter says. “Well, except for the part where the recruiters wouldn’t let me in when I tried to join up.” 

“Oh, really,” Tony says, with a bit of chuckle. “So you were 14 when you joined the army, were you?”

Peter just stares at him for a long moment, as though he’s said something very obvious.

“I did have some forged paperwork, but I didn’t get the impression that they cared very much.”

The pastry in Tony’s mouth turns to ash. He becomes oddly aware of the sound of his heartbeat thrumming in his ears. _Fourteen_ , he thinks. _Fourteen._

“America doesn’t send children to war,” he insists, because it’s preposterous. No one in their right mind would … 

“You’ve seen the photo in my file, Mr. Stark,” Peter says, with a little shrug. “Do I look 18 to you?”

He doesn’t. He looks like a scrawny kid with baby fat still puffing his cheeks and a serious need for a haircut. _Shit, shit, shit …_

“The thing is,” Peter is saying, over the crashing of Tony’s pulse. “The thing is, I’m not really the exception to any rule. Even if I were the only one to lie about his age – which I’m sure I wasn’t – what’s the difference, really, between 14 and 18.”

“A big, fucking difference, kid” Tony chokes out.

Peter looks at him sadly. It’s the way a teacher might look at a very stupid student who just can’t quite manage to understand the lesson of the day.

“Is there?” he says. “A boy of 18, who’s never been without his mother, never known hardship, never seen death. That boy is still just a kid without any sort of preparation for battle. I, at least, had a few good hard knocks first to get me into shape.”

Peter pauses, as though recalling a few of those knocks, then scrubs at his face. When he raises his head back up, he pins Tony in place with a look. 

“Children fight the wars that men like you wage, Mr. Stark,” he says. “Whether you like to admit it to yourself or not. Me, I’m nothing special.”

Tony jerks himself back an inch or two as the accusation hits him full in the face. _Men like you._

“I’m not exactly waging any wars here, Pete,” he says. 

“Maybe not,” Peter allows. “But they don’t call you the Merchant of Death for nothing, do they?” 

And damn, if that doesn’t take Tony back. Back to his cave in the Moroccan desert, back with Yinsen keeping him alive with a battery attached to his chest, back to seeing his weapons in the hands of those Italian fascists.

“Listen, kid,” he says, voice hoarse. “I believe you when you say you aren’t in the game anymore. I do. Don’t you think you might be able to extend me the same curtesy? That’s not who I am anymore. It hasn’t been for a very long time.”

Their gazes catch on each other for a long minute, Tony trying like everything to read what’s going on in the kid’s head and failing miserably.

Finally, Peter slumps down in his seat, breaking their staring contest. His body language speaks of utter exhaustion, and Tony can’t help but feel a little sorry for the kid.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Stark,” he says. “That was unfair of me. It has been a very long couple of days, and I fear I’m not coping as well as I should.” 

“Car chase is bound to put anyone in a piss poor mood,” Tony says. 

It makes the peace, just as it’s meant to do, but something heavy hangs in the air between them that wasn’t there before. It sends something itching at the back of Tony’s neck, and the feeling doesn’t go away the whole trip back to Cannes.

 _Men like you. Men like you._ The words echo in his head, the kind of indictment he’s always felt he deserved deep down. He’s not sure why he should care what Peter Parker, spy and traitor, should think of him. And yet. And yet …

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, ya'll, they really did call computers electronic brains, back in the day. It's a detail I found just too adorable not to include here. If you are interested in learning a little bit more about early artificial intelligence theories, Wired has an old, but very interesting article on the history here: https://www.wired.com/1997/05/es-evolutionary/. 
> 
> If you prefer a less serious approach to the subject of electronic brains, the Katharine Hepburn/Spencer Tracy picture "Desk Set" is great. For those who enjoy banter and proto-nerds falling in love, it is a winner.
> 
> If you're interested in learning more about the history of the French Riviera leading up to this period, I have been reading "The Riviera Set" by Mary S. Lovell, which has been very helpful in writing this. 
> 
> I know, I know. Fics aren't really supposed to have bibliographies, but I powered right through it anyway.
> 
> Thanks to everyone who has left kudos and comments on this story so far. You are all great, and I appreciate you enabling my weird little obsessions.


	4. Chapter 4

The dust from the road comes off easily in the bath Peter draws for himself once they return to the hotel. But he still feels dirty. He shouldn’t have lashed out at Stark like that, but he’d felt backed into a corner. And, well, spiders bite.

It changes things, the fact that he knows who Peter is. But it’s not really clear whether it changes them for good or ill. On one hand, the SSR could be called down on his head at literally any moment. On the other, if he can convince Stark to help him, it would be significantly easier to set a trap for his thief if the bait is cooperative. 

He’ll have to make apologies, swallow his pride, be properly contrite. Peter doesn’t mind that really. He’s said what he said because he knew it would hurt Stark. And it wouldn’t have hurt if he weren’t, deep down, a good man. If he didn’t have regrets for the things he’s done. Peter understands regret. He knows the way a man wears it, like an ill-fitting suit.

He stays in the bath until he’s pruny, trying to work through the proper approach and failing to come up with anything. While he’s toweling his hair dry, there’s a knock at the door. When he gets there, though, there’s no one there, just a cream envelope shoved under his door. The note inside is terse and written in dark, spiky letters.

_Dinner? 8 o’clock at the docks. –TS_

Well, it seems he’s been summoned.

The Riviera at sunset is like a watercolor painting, the sky a pale purple bleeding into delicate pink. The mountains are a dusky blue, all leading down to the bright orange ember of the sun slowly being extinguished as it sinks down into the watery depths of the sea.

There’s a current of people dressed in their finest wandering along the promenade in front of the hotel, headed to restaurants, or night clubs, or the casino. Peter slips into the flow of people in the direction of the Hotel Carlton’s private docks.

He’s not sure what to expect from this encounter. The note had been obscure at best. He’s dressed respectably enough, in a lightweight grey suit, sans tie. He just hopes it’ll do well enough for whatever Stark has planned.

When he reaches the docks, a short ways off, there’s no sign of Stark anywhere, just a long line of fancy yachts, both motorized and sail boats. Many are about to set sail, with revelers hanging off the railings, fueled with drink or excitement.

Peter’s wandering down the length of the dock, peering onto the decks of moored boats when a call of “Hey, kid!” grabs his attention. His head swivels to the very end of the dock where Stark stands on the deck of a comparatively small yacht bobbing low in the water. Even in the gathering darkness, its hull shines a bright white, deck gleaming with golden wood. Across the side, in large black capital letters, is the word “FRIDAY.”

As Peter approaches the boat, he sees that Stark is dressed down for the first time in their acquaintance. He’s wearing grey trousers and a worn blue fisherman’s sweater. It’s hanging off one shoulder, revealing a white undershirt, and there’s a large hole in one elbow. His dark hair is windswept and messy. It sort of stuns Peter to see him so casual. Tony Stark without his armor is quite a thing.

“Permission to come aboard, Captain?” Peter asks, peering up into his face. 

“Permission granted,” Stark says, reaching a hand down to him.

It’s a significantly warmer reception than he was expecting. Peter takes the hand on offer, and is hoisted aboard with one strong tug. He manages, just barely, to keep on his feet, but nevertheless Stark’s hands come to his hips to steady him before Peter takes a quick step out of his grasp.

“I’ve got it,” he says, fighting off a blush. “Just needed to get my sea legs.”

“Of course,” Stark says with a knowing tilt to his lips. “So, what do you think of my girl?”

He spreads his arms to indicate the boat.

“Bit low-key for you, isn’t it?” Peter asks. “I would have expected something more … Gilded, shall we say?” 

“Well, that’s just because you haven’t seen what she’s got going on below decks. That’s what makes her really special.”

Stark pats the side of the boat affectionately, heading back in the direction of the boat’s stern. He shoots a look back at Peter.

“Coming?” he asks.

Peter nods and follows him down a few short steps, ducking into the boat’s control room behind Stark. Beneath a window looking out onto the foredeck is a gleaming chrome control panel covered in knobs and dials that spans the length of the room. Everything is centered around a navigation console with steering wheel and compass. Peter doesn’t actually know much about boats, except for what he learned about navigation in his SSR training, but this seems excessive.

Stark stands in front of the steering wheel and flips a few switches, turns a couple dials.

“Ok, let’s hit the waves, shall we?” he says with a grin over his shoulder at Peter.

Then he taps gently a few times at the steering wheel.

“Friday, baby girl, you awake?”

“Are you really talking to your boat?” Peter asks at exactly the same moment as a voice from somewhere says “Roger, boss. All systems online.”

Peter jumps at the unexpected sound. He very nearly hits the ceiling of the little room. He looks around, dumbly, trying to discern where it came from. When he’s facing front again, Stark is watching him with a giant smile on his face, eyes dancing with amusement.

“Are you hiding a woman somewhere onboard?” Peter asks. 

“It’s not _Not_ that,” Stark says. “Friday, will you say hello to Mr. Parker? He’s about to be very impressed with you.”

“I do like to impress, boss,” says the voice, which Peter is now noticing has a slight Irish brogue to it as well as a hint of a mechanical tone. “Good evening, Mr. Parker. I am Friday, an artificial intelligence designed by Tony Stark. My current function is to pilot this boat. I hope you will have a very pleasant voyage.”

“Um,” Peter says, eyes going even wider. “Thank you, Miss.” 

“You’re quite welcome.”

Scanning the long control panel, he finds the speaker box sitting below the steering wheel. Peter feels a little faint, but also like all of his blood is suddenly made of electricity. Can Stark really have developed an AI? And if he has, can he really have the gall to make it pilot his yacht? The answer to the last question is pretty obvious. As for the first … Peter’s fingers itch to rip open that control panel and see what’s going on inside. 

“Hey, Fri, keep us close to the coast, will you?” Stark says. “Pleasure cruise speed. We’ll go down to Cap d’Antibes and then circle back.”

“Got it, boss,” Friday responds. “Commencing operation Moonlight Serenade.”

“No,” Stark says, turning back to Peter with a helpless shrug. “No, that’s not … Just take us out, will you, Fri?”

“Roger, boss. Commencing operation …”

Tony slams a fist down on a display of buttons. 

“I will take you apart and teach you some manners,” he hisses, then turning back to Peter. “Honestly, give them the ability to sass, and you’ll regret every day thereafter. Shall we?” 

He gestures at the doorway behind Peter. Instead, Peter takes a few steps forward.

“Could I maybe just …”

“Oh no,” Stark says, placing two warm palms on Peter’s shoulders and steering him out of the control room. “You don’t get to look under the lady’s skirt on a first date. That’s the mark of a roué.”

“But, if I could just take a look at her electronic neural network …”

Peter cranes his neck so that he can look longingly back at the control panel. He wants to quiz Stark on everything to do with the system. He wants to watch as it pulses to life. This is a variety of excitement he hasn’t felt in a long time. He’s caught sight of something completely new. 

“We’d have to be in dry dock for that,” Stark says, prodding him onward. “Another time, kid. I promise.”

There’s a bump as the boat moves away from the dock, and Peter turns completely around to watch the steering wheel turning all by itself, steering the boat in the direction of the Cap. 

Peter squeaks at that as he’s jostled away from the doorway and out into the night. And night has fallen in earnest while he’s been admiring a technological breakthrough. On the shore, the hotel is illuminated in a golden cascade of light, looming over the bay. Up in the mountains, the villas have been reduced to tiny points of light, no bigger than the stars in inky blue sky. It’s almost hard to tell where one stops and the other begins.

Stark closes the door to the control room behind them and moves smoothly over to where a table has been laid. The whole set up is illuminated by a set of white Chinese paper lanterns hanging from the rigging – casting a diffuse, warm light but allowing numerous shadow to creep in. He pulls a champagne bottle out of a bucket of ice and deftly pops the cork, then pours two glasses, handing one to Peter.

Peter knocks it back in one fizzy gulp, and holds it out for a refill. Stark gives him a raised eyebrow, but complies. Feeling slightly more fortified, Peter speaks. 

“So that conversation we had this morning,” he says. “None of that was theoretical, was it?”

“Not in the strictest sense,” Stark says, lips twitching. 

He leans back against the railing – body a long, tempting line, hair ruffled in the breeze – and eyes Peter in way that he feels more than sees in the darkness. Overhead, the moon is just a waning sliver, barely casting any light.

“You just let me talk out of my ass for an hour,” Peter accuses. 

“In my defense, you’re kind of irresistible when you talk science. Even when you happen to be wrong.” 

“Thank you, that’s very comforting,” Peter says, draining his glass again.

He sprawls into one of the chairs at the table, tips his head back, and allows the laughter deep in him to bubble up to the surface.

“You … You have an AI driving your fucking yacht,” he splutters out. “If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I’d never believe it in a million years.” 

“What, you think running my boat is beneath her?”

“Beneath the world’s first artificial intelligence?” Peter asks, jerking his head to look at Stark, hair falling into his eyes as he does. “Yes, I think it might be.”

Stark steps toward him, into the full light, and slides into the chair across from Peter, hands fidgeting with the white tablecloth.

“She’s not the first,” he says. “Friday’s just a baby AI. This is training. I’m letting her get out a bit. See the world”

“Oh, naturally,” Peter says.

It’s a warm night, even with the breeze created as they cruise, so he slips off his jacket, rolls his sleeves up, and then crudely leans his elbows onto the table in front of the white dinner service. He stills as he considers the connotations of what Stark has just said.

“Wait … What do you mean she’s not the first?”

He shouldn’t encourage the grin that spreads, slow and and seductive, across Stark’s face. Yet he can’t help but echo it.

“She’s got a big brother,” Stark confides, leaning a little farther across the table. “Jarvis. He runs all of Stark Tower, including my own personal lab.”

“You have very precocious children, Mr. Stark,” Peter says, a bit stunned.

“Well, it’s a very precocious family, if I may say so,” Stark says with a shrug.

“Indeed,” Peter says. 

He reaches again for the green Veuve Clicquot bottle and pours liberally into both their glasses. Stark lets his loll loosely in his hand, eyes still on Peter. Peter stretches out and dings the crystal rims together.

“Cheers to you,” he says. “And your completely insufferable genius.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Stark says, and follows Peter’s example in knocking the drink back. 

The bubbles tickle at Peter’s nose. It’s possible he’s had too much already. He honestly can’t tell if that echoing bubbling feeling in his chest is born of alcohol or scientific discovery. He might not care.

“Incidentally,” Stark is saying. “My personal lab at Stark Tower is where you’d be working if you decided to join the SSR science division.”

Ah, there it is. Bubbles gone. Peter takes a moment to miss them properly, then sighs and sits up straight. 

“Are we friends, do you think, Mr. Stark?” he asks.

“Well, it seems unlikely when you still call me Mr. Stark,” the other man replies, eyeing Peter appraisingly. “But, call me optimistic, I’d still say yes.” 

Peter nods.

“Well,” he says. “Friends don’t tease friends with things they can’t possibly have. I believe it’s considered quite rude.”

Stark purses his lips together for a moment.

“I think you might be underestimating my influence here, Pete,” he says. 

But Peter’s already shaking his head before he can finish the thought.

“Not even you …”

“We catch this thief, who knows what could happen?”

“We? You … You’d help me?” Peter asks. “Just like that?”

He can hardly believe it. Sure, he’d planned on broaching the subject, but he’d expected it to require much more cajoling and convincing.

Stark just shrugs. 

“That was your plan all along, right? Me as bait? No, kid, stop,” he says, cutting off Peter’s protests. “I don’t mind. But let’s talk strategy after dinner, yeah? I’m starving.”

Then he’s refilling their glasses and popping the cover off of a large tureen that it turns out is full of mussels swimming in a sauce of white wine, garlic and butter. A moment earlier, Peter could have sworn he wasn’t hungry. But at the smell that wafts in his direction his stomach grumbles, and he gladly takes the bowl that Stark offers him.

They eat the mussels with hunks of crusty baguette, tossing the emptied shells into a bucket beside the table. They’re mostly quiet while they eat, but surprisingly it isn’t awkward. Their fingers brush occasionally as they reach for bread, or their champagne glasses, the boat rocks gently as it makes its way up the coast, and it all feels peaceful. When his bowl is empty, Peter throws all good manners to the wind and licks the sauce from his fingers, closing his eyes as he relishes the taste. 

When he opens them, he finds Stark staring at him with an intense scrutiny. He’s got his bottom lip clenched in his teeth, and his eyes … His eyes are black, pupils dilated. Peter finds his throat is too dry to properly swallow. 

“Sorry,” he manages, eventually. “Bad table manners, I know. Been out of society too long, I guess.”

“You’ll get no complaints from me, kid,” Stark says, voice pitched low.

He clears his throat and averts his eyes for a moment, and in a flash he’s composed again.

“I almost forgot,” Stark says, digging into his pocket. 

Peter is puzzled as he places a red velvet box about the width of wallet in the center of the table and scoots it over to rest in front of his own empty plate. 

“That’s for you. Open it. I promise it won’t bite.” 

“What is this?” Peter asks. 

But under Stark’s watchful eye he picks up the box, weighing it gently in his hands, then flips it open. Nestled inside are two thin metal bands, looping one over the other. They look to be made of steel, almost like handcuffs but for a lack of chain linking them. 

Peter looks back up to Stark and raises an eyebrow.

“What?” the other man asks, a teasing tone in his voice. “Is jewelry not the way to seduce bright young things anymore? Surely I can’t be that far out of the loop.” 

“Jewelry?” Peter asks, running a tentative finger over one of the bracelets. There’s a barely-there filament attached to one side of it, and that sparks something familiar for Peter.

“You look confused,” Stark says. “What’s wrong, Pete? Don’t recognize your own work?” 

_Oh._ That makes Peter’s eyes go saucer wide. He pulls one of the bracelets out of the box and holds it close to his face. Yes, the filament is the triggering mechanism, and there’s a little catch around the edge that, when he presses it, slides open to reveal a hollow chamber. 

“I made some improvements, of course,” Tony says. “I mean, you made yours in the middle of a war zone. I’m sure it’s nothing you wouldn’t have done yourself given the resources. It’s still your basic design, just streamlined. There was no formula for your ooze or webbing or whatever, though, so you’re on your own there.”

As he talks, Peter unclasps first one, and then the other band, fastening them over his wrists. The weight of them is just right. He can reach the triggering filament with an index finger curved inward. They’re different, certainly, from the clunky old web shooters he’d made during the war, but there’s still something pleasantly familiar about them. A comfort. He feels, ridiculously, like a child having his favorite teddy bear returned after thinking him lost forever. 

“I don’t understand how you …”

“Oh, I had some time. Insomniac, you know, and the plans were all in your file,” Stark is rubbing the back of his neck nervously. “You don’t mind, do you? I just thought …” 

“Thank you,” Peter says, not daring to look Stark directly in the face. He feels his eyes prickle dangerously. “This is … They’re perfect. Thank you, Mr. Stark.”

“Hey, don’t mention it, kid,” Stark is saying. “Like I said, just a little late-night project. Nothing worth making a fuss over.”

It’s not that Peter really thinks he put himself out. Tony Stark is exactly the sort of person to take on a project like this just for the fun of it. But it has been a long time since someone thought enough about him to give him a present so perfectly calibrated to please him.

He raises his eyes to Stark’s and allows himself to look his fill, to let all of his gratitude and wonder seep out to wrap around whatever soft, fragile thing he sees hiding behind Stark’s own dark pupils.

The heavy _something_ hanging between them is shattered with a crack loud as thunder. The muscles throughout Peter’s body tense. For just a blip of a moment he’s in the middle of a bloody field, dragging Bucky behind him as he screams and bleeds, and the bombs go off all around them.

A fizzle of green light brings him back to the present. Fireworks. Peter inhales deeply. Someone is setting off fireworks. The erratic skittering of his heart slows and he realizes, for the first time since his little flashback, that Stark’s hand is gripping his, white knuckled, across the table. 

Peter gives him a weak smile and laughs a little perfunctorily. Then he carefully slips his hand out of Stark’s and walks over to the railing to get a better look. They’ve made the point of Cap d’Antibes.

The multicolored fireworks bloom like alien flowers in the sky and meet their exact mirrors in the reflection off the dark sea. In the intermittent red, green, blue, yellow light he can see the sharp cliff face rising from the water, black waves cresting and breaking against it.

Stark comes up beside him to lean his elbows against the railing. Their bodies aren’t touching, but Peter can feel the warmth radiating off him, and it’s enough to bring a little more comfort, to make him feel a little steadier. 

“Sorry,” Peter says in a voice close to a whisper. He’s not even sure Stark can hear him over the thundering booms of the fireworks.

“No,” Stark assures him. “No don’t. I … Me too, kid. Me too.” 

He jerks up from his slouched position and heads back towards the control room.

“Fri,” he yells. “Get us out of here.”

“You got it boss,” Friday lilts, and Peter feels the swaying of the boat amplify as they turn away from the Cap, and the beautiful explosions, to make its way back toward Cannes.

He watches as the lights grow distant and eventually fade, the air around them growing hushed.

When Peter looks behind him, he finds Tony hunched over the table, fingers wrapped around the neck of a bottle some amber liquor. When he notices Peter’s gaze he proffers the bottle toward him.

“Not exactly the cure my doctors would recommend, but you can’t argue with it for effectiveness,” he says.

The glass of the bottle is still warm from Stark’s fingers as Peter grabs it by the neck and takes a long swig. The bourbon burns all the way down his throat to curl, warm and friendly, in his belly. They share a consoling look between them as he hands it back.

Peter’s about to slide back into his own seat, when he hears a crackling sound, like a record starting up. Soon enough, he hears swelling of strings followed by horns and woodwinds. He looks around, confused as to where the sound is coming from.

Tony collapses, pressing his face and hands against the table. His back begins to tremor with laughter. 

“Moonlight Serenade,” he says, rubbing at his temples. “She’s doing fucking Moonlight Serenade.” 

“Where is it even coming from?” Peter says, turning in a slow circle.

“Record player in the control room, speaker hidden on the roof,” Stark says, taking another long gulp from the bottle.

He stands quickly, attempts to straighten his rumpled sweater, then shrugs at the uselessness of it. He holds out a hand, palm up, in Peter’s direction.

“Well, Mr. Parker,” he says. “Shall we?” 

“You’re not serious?”

“Friday’s a willful girl,” Stark replies. “Wouldn’t want to disappoint her.”

Tentatively, Peter places his hand in Stark’s, feeling the rasp of a callused palm against his smoother one. Fixated on that detail, he finds himself pulled onto the more open expanse of the foredeck and manhandled into position – left hand at Stark’s shoulder, right hand held just slightly aloft, their fingers interlaced.

It all feels backward to Peter. He’s used to leading, in a dance, not following. But he’s always been light on his feet, and he reckons he’ll manage. With a tug, Stark reels him in close. They’re chest to chest and cheek to cheek as the instrumental introduction ends. 

_Don’t throw bouquets at me,_ Rosemary Clooney croons. _Don’t please my folks too much. Don’t laugh at my jokes too much. People will say we’re in love._

A warm hand at the small of Peter’s back nudges, just a fraction, and they’re moving, twirling in a slow, bobbing circle accented by the rocking of the boat itself as it slices through the waves.

_Don’t praise my charm too much,_ Bing Crosby answers in the next verse. _Don’t look so vain with me. Don’t stand in the rain with me. People will say we’re in love._

Peter feels like his senses have been dialed to eleven. He can feel the scrap of Stark’s goatee against his jaw, the electric trails of his fingers moving in slow circles across Peter’s back, the quick-steady drum of the other man’s heart right next to his own.

It feels not unlike slipping under a wave – a sudden flush of panic followed by the peace and stillness of the underwater world. Peter just stops fighting the undertow and let’s Stark steer him gently across the deck. He knows he’s not in danger of stumbling, even when the other man slips him into an impressive dip with a rumbling chuckle. It’s been a long, long time since Peter trusted anyone not to let him fall.

Stark sings along with the music, his voice a velvet baritone pitched just above a whisper. _Don’t start collecting things. Give me my rose and my glove._ His eyes are closed, his face peaceful when Peter flicks his gaze over to his face.

Sensing eyes on him, Stark’s dark lashes flutter open and their eyes meet.

“Sweetheart, they’re suspecting things,” Stark sings, gaze all tangled up with Peter’s, the tiniest hint of a smile curing his lips. “People will say we’re in love.”

They turn and turn in what feels like slow motion.

“You don’t want me to kiss you, kid, you’d better stop looking at me like that,” Stark says.

Their lips are only inches apart, and Peter wants to lean forward and bring them together, thinks of how delicious the shocked gasp from the man would taste if he did so.

“Tony,” he sighs.

But then he hesitates. It’s foolishness and folly, to think he can really have this, isn’t it? Isn’t it? Starlight and music, and Tony’s arms around him are one thing. But what happens in the morning, when all that is gone?

The confusion he’s feeling must show through on his face, because the pressure on his back eases, and Tony is taking a step away from him.

“Right,” he says. “Right. Of course. Silly of me to think you would … Sorry, kid.”

“Tony?” Peter asks, confused even as the man spins on his heel and stalks back to the rear of the boat. _Shit._

*

The tensing of Peter’s muscles and the obvious hesitance in his face are all the indication Tony needs that he’s being a world-class creep. Jesus, how did he manage to read those signals so wrong? He could have sworn that just moments ago the kid had been pliant and content in his arms.

He leans over the railing at the back of the boat, watching the wake roll out in foamy white waves.

“Tony?”

Even like this, he enjoys the sound of his name in the kid’s mouth. He looks over his shoulder to see him standing loose-limed and pale in the lantern light, a little furrow of concern or question forming in between his eyebrows.

“Poor impulse control,” Tony lobs back at him. “I know I said I’d keep my hands to myself. Wouldn’t want to get too close to the Merchant of Death, right? Some of the stink might rub off.”

The last is said in a mutter mostly to himself, but he knows Peter hears it because his brown eyes go all wide and sad.

“I didn’t mean that,” he insists. “I shouldn’t have said it.”

“You don’t have to blow smoke up my ass, kid,” Tony says. “You had me pegged. Don’t back down now.”

“You had me in a corner,” Peter says, taking a few steps toward Tony. “I just wanted to get some of my own back.” 

“You weren’t wrong,” Tony says. “And maybe we don’t ever escape sins like that. Maybe we shouldn’t.”

“I hope that isn’t true,” Peter says. “If it is, then there’s no hope for me.”

He settles beside Tony, back against the railing, head tipped back to watch the stars go by. Tony doesn’t miss the way his rapid heartbeat seems to calm when the kid is within his reach. Probably he’s losing his mind, is all this is. He’s not sure he cares.

“I don’t make weapons anymore,” is what he says. It feels incredibly important, just now, that the kid understand. “I haven’t since the Italians took me prisoner.”

Then Tony watches as a small smile tilts across Peter’s face. It’s buried soon enough in a palm that reaches up to wipe it away, but he saw it. 

“That doesn’t necessarily follow,” Peter says. 

“They had my weapons,” he replies. “They weren’t even subtle. Giant boxes with Stark across the side in big black letters all over the camp. Turns out my … Well, my business partner had been doing deals under the table. I’d been supplying the Axis with at least half its ammunition for years. Not like I didn’t notice that business was booming. I had just never cared enough to ask for details.”

“You could still make weapons,” Peter says. He still hasn’t looked at him, his eyes still searching the sky. “Just be more careful about whose hands they end up in.” 

“That implies there are right hands for the stuff I was peddling,” Tony says, bitterly. “Better to be done with the whole business. Use my skills for something better than that.”

There’s a bump of Peter’s shoulder against his, and then long, delicate fingers are weaving in between his own. God, he really does not understand this kid, sometimes. But he isn’t protesting. 

“You’re the most brilliant man I’ve ever met,” Peter tells the stars. “I can’t wait to see what you come up with. You’re going to change the world, aren’t you?”

Tony’s not unused to people calling him brilliant, but among the people that matter, it’s usually said with some degree of exasperation. _You’re brilliant, Tony. Why can’t you get your shit together?_ This is different. When Peter speaks like this, it’s with wholehearted sincerity. And if Tony weren’t already determined, it would give him the fuel he needed to forge the world anew. 

Slowly, like Peter’s a horse he’s afraid of spooking, Tony raises their still-intertwined hands, and places a kiss on the tips of Peter’s fingers.

“I want to show you something,” he says.

“Alright.”

Peter’s tone is a little bit cautious, but there’s still anticipation there. Tony feels his own pulse jump. He’s told very few people the whole story, and it always feels a bit like peeling back his own skin.

He pulls away from Peter, needs to do something with his nervous energy, so he paces and runs a hand through his hair.

“I went to Morocco to assess weapons needs before the allied push,” he says, voice coming out shaky at first, but building confidence as he goes. “We were supposed to be undercover, low to the ground. But apparently it didn’t work out that way. They must have known where we were the whole time. Knew our route because there were landmines waiting for us on the road. I was the only one to survive the explosions, but I ended up with shrapnel in my chest. These tiny bits of metal working their way in towards my heart.”

“Christ,” Peter whispers, clutching – maybe unconsciously – at his own chest.

“When I woke up, there was a car battery powering an electromagnet attached to my chest, and a bunch of angry Italians demanding that I build them some better bombs,” Tony says, remembering the cold chill of the cave, the ache in his rattled bones, the hot metal smell of the battery filling his nostrils.

He remembers clutching at wires running out of his chest and feels his hands start to tremble. They had been steady the whole time in Morocco. They had to be. It was only when he got home that he started having the tremors, sometimes so bad they made it impossible for him to work for days. But it has been years since it resurfaced.

Tony takes a moment just to study the movement of his hands, closes his eyes to try to will the trembling away. Then cool fingers are curling through his own, and Peter’s right there, pulling him toward the table, then pulling a chair over so he can sit close. 

“You don’t have to do this,” Peter says, firmly, while he traces circles over Tony’s bony, scarred knuckles. “I know I was a jackass. I never know when to keep my mouth shut, ok? But that doesn’t mean you owe me anything.”

“What if I want to change that?” Tony asks.

Peter bites his lips and lowers his eyes to their hands, and that hesitancy is back, the kind that Tony saw in his eyes while they were dancing. He can’t tell what the kid’s deliberating over, but it must be a tough question.

“They took me all around the prison camp, carrying that battery in my arms like a puppy,” he says, forging ahead with the story despite the look of protest that Peter sends his way. “They were trying to explain to me what they wanted me to build, but all I could see when I looked around were the hundreds of crates marked Stark Industries. Turns out I was blown up by my own bomb.”

His laughter is bitter when he says it. Which is just how it should be, really. The whole thing is a joke on a cosmic scale.

“I don’t understand how you managed to get out of there carrying a battery keeping you alive,” Peter says. “That seems like a big one, even for you.”

Tony smiles at that.

“Always asking the right questions, aren’t you, Pete?” he says. “They’d kidnapped a local man, a doctor, to help save my life after they blew me up. Smart guy. Yinsen. You would have liked him. The Italians brought in all this equipment for me to build bombs with. But instead, Yinsen and I built something else.”

“That sounds ominous.”

“You have no idea,” Tony says with a smirk.

He pulls his fingers gently out of Peter’s grasp. They’re still tremoring slightly, likely will be for hours, but it’s less pronounced now. So it’s not an issue to reach down and tug off his sweater.

“Tony …” Peter says, voice a warning and face flushing a delicate pink. “I don’t really think this is the time …” 

So caught up in his narrative, Tony hadn’t considered how this might look at the offset. But now that Pete’s brought it up, he doesn’t miss how the kid is eyeing his biceps through a fan of dark lashes. Well, that doesn’t hurt his ego any.

“My eyes are right here, kid,” he says, gesturing, and Peter flushes a little deeper.

“Um,” Peter says with a little embarrassed cough. “You were showing me something?”

“Right,” Tony says, and without fanfare, he pulls his undershirt over his head as well.

Tony’s self-aware enough to know that this part of his body is nothing to elicit longing looks. The scars from where he and Yinsen installed the reactor are still vivid, radiating out from the glowing blue circle of the reactor like a starburst. His skin is mottled and puckered as it has built itself up beside the foreign metal. 

His action elicits a little gasp from Peter. When Tony dares look at his face, his eyes are wide, his mouth ever so slightly ajar.

“What …”

“It’s called an arc reactor,” Tony says. “Practically speaking, it keeps me alive. Powers an electromagnet to keep everything in place.”

“The shrapnel is still there?” Peter manages, his voice coming out breathless and panicked. 

“The pieces are placed at an awkward spot,” Tony says. “Surgery would be too dangerous. But, look, that’s not the point.”

“I think it might be a little the point, Tony,” Peter says, his voice gaining strength. 

“The point,” Tony insists, “Is what it is.”

“A magnet.”

“A power source for a magnet. But not just any power source.” 

“Alright,” Peter says, mouth forming a tight line. “Tell me how it’s different.”

“Well, for starters, it requires very little input to create enormous amounts of energy and produces almost no waste. It’s nearly limitless clean energy, is what it is, and we’re unveiling it at the summit meeting this weekend.”

“That’s going to be quite a show,” Peter says with a little huff of … What? Humor? Anxiety?

“Not this one, mind,” Tony elaborates. “Phil’s keeping an eye on the prototype for the presentation. This one, I’d prefer you keep under your hat. Seems like a bad idea to let the general public know that there’s only a supercharged battery keeping me from a slow, painful death.” 

He tries not to think about Obadiah, about the reactor slipping free of it’s casing, about the shrapnel working its way millimeter by painful millimeter into delicate tissue. The kid actually winces when Tony says it. And that, at least, is a gratifying thing to see.

“So you’re just going to give it away?” Peter asks. 

“The technology will remain proprietary, but Stark Industries will be offering to build units for any country that signs onto the NATO accords.”

Peter reaches out a hand, fingers hovering over the reactor, but not touching. 

“Limitless clean energy for a promise of nonaggression,” he says, softly, almost to himself. “That could change everything.”

“Peace in our time,” Tony says. “That’s the idea, kid.” 

He takes hold of Peter’s still-hovering fingers and presses them to his chest, along the raised line where skin meets metal. The nerve endings there are dead, but nevertheless, the touch zings through Tony’s body.

When their eyes meet, the confusion from before is back in Peter’s face. 

“Why would you tell me this?” he asks after a long, tense silence.

“Because I wanted you to know,” Tony says with a shrug. He honestly doesn’t want to examine the urge too closely.

“But I’m a spy,” the kid says.

“Former spy,” Tony says with a little shrug.

“And a thief.”

“And former thief,” Tony corrects. 

“And a traitor,” Peter says, voice cracking on the last word.

“Well, that’s just bullshit, and we both know it,” he says, smoothly. “I trust you, Pete. I suggest you accustom yourself to the idea.”

The tips of Peter’s fingers trace the outline of the reactor, and then his face seems to crumple in slow motion.

“You shouldn’t,” he whispers. “You really shouldn’t.” 

Tony can’t really process what happens fully as it’s happening, but one minute, Peter’s fingers are on the reactor, and the next the kid is up and stumbling to the railing of the boat. He sends Tony one frenzied look, breathes out an “I’m sorry,” and then he’s tumbling over the side of the boat with a splash.

Tony’s up and leaning over the railing in an instant, searching franticly in the dark water for a sign of Peter’s head. He’s about to climb over the side to jump in himself, when he finally sees the pale oval of Peter’s face break the waves. 

“Kid,” he shouts out.

Peter casts one last incomprehensible look back in his direction, and then begins to swim for the shore in steady strokes.

“Jesus, fuck!” Tony shouts, banging a fist painfully against the metal of the railing.

*

When he first hits the water, Peter feels like he’s drowning. He hits the waves face first, completely lacking the coordination needed to dive gracefully. For a long moment underwater, he loses sense of which way is up and which is down, and can’t decide which direction to swim.

Then he exhales all the breath from his lungs, all in one go, and is propelled to the surface. He hears Tony shout for him and ignores it but for a brief glance backward.

The shore isn’t that far away, and Peter’s a strong swimmer. He focuses on his strokes and regulating his breathing, and falls into a thoughtless trance until the water gets shallow enough for his feet to trail along the sandy sea floor.

His arms and legs are jelly when he finally drags himself onto the beach and allows a wet cheek to rest against the still-warm sand while he catches his breath. 

It’s luck, really, that he’d had his little meltdown while they were already passing by the outskirts of Cannes. More convenient than somewhere out in the countryside, anyway.

Peter’s a fool. And possibly a madman, because who else would decide on an impromptu swim through the Med in the middle of the night in full dress. His only excuse is that it was too much. He couldn’t stand it anymore – the confidences Tony laid at his feet as though they cost nothing, the look of complete, uncomplicated trust in his eyes.

Trust, though, is the wrong word for it. It isn’t the carefully calculated trust that Wanda has granted him, having seen his actions and judged them correct. It isn’t the grudging loyalty that Bucky gives him because once he dragged him off a battlefield, bleeding and half conscious. It’s something entirely different.

_Faith_ , Peter thinks. That’s what it is. Tony has faith in him. Completely unearned, utterly undeserved faith. Peter’s chest is so full of it that it makes it hard to breathe even without the hard swim.  

He believes, without any real evidence in support, that Peter is good, and true and, in some way, worthy.

It’s a preposterous stance to take. Peter hurts and betrays everyone near him, in the end. He abandoned May, he betrayed his unit, he gave away his country’s secrets. What greater harm could he do now, knowing this secret of Tony’s? The secret that keeps his heart beating.

It doesn’t even bear consideration. Too much. Far too much.

Groaning, Peter sits up, wiping sand from his cheek and grimacing at the grit that has made its way into his eyes. Then he pushes himself up onto his feet, brushing off his knees as well. He’s soaked through, chilled despite the warm night. His shoes slosh when he walks, they’re so full of water.

Leaving the beach, he walks slowly into the city. He steals some dry clothes off a line, sneaking into an alley to change. He should go back, then, to the hotel. To his room. But he’s terrified of the possibility of seeing Tony again. He doesn’t know what he’ll say. And his head is still a jumble, full up of all the things the other man had told him.

So instead he walks the cobbled streets of Cannes in stolen clothes and sodden shoes, trying to put the world into order again.

He hasn’t much more clarity when the first rays of the sun begin to tint the sky pink, but he has the first step. And the hope that the next will reveal itself after that.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, here I am. Back on my bullshit and completely unable to resist a corny dance number when even the slightest opportunity presents itself. Look, it's appropriate to the time period, ok? That's what I'm going with.
> 
> Apologies about the delay on this update. I got distracted writing something else, but I'm back on it now, and hopefully updates will be coming more frequently. 
> 
> As always, thank you to everyone who has left kudos and comments for this story. They always make my day. Enjoy!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note the change in rating, and make your choices accordingly, folks. Enjoy!

“Baby boy, you feeling ok? You look like you’ve been run over by a convoy.”

Peter looks up from a steaming cup of burnt coffee to see Wade Wilson enter the little back-alley café he’s chosen for this encounter. The floors are sticky, the tables scarred, and the patrons questionable. It seemed the best decision to choose a place where people are used to looking the other way when anything out of the ordinary happens.

Wade can’t help but draw attention. There’s his personality, of course. But there’s also the pink, fibrotic scars that cover most of his body courtesy of a two-week stint in a Nazi prison camp. He’s never really explained them to Peter, but he doesn’t really have to. Peter can put the dots together, and the completed picture isn’t pretty.

When Wade sees he’s caught Peter’s eye successfully, he waves both hands enthusiastically at him, and then settles across from him at the miniscule wooden table.

“Thanks, Wade,” Peter tells. “I’m feeling just stellar.”

“Girl trouble?” Wade asks with a knowing grin. “Or, ooh. Boy trouble, right? So much worse. We really can be assholes.”

“It isn’t girl or boy trouble,” Peter protests.

“Oh, Petey, you do not have to remind me that you upgraded to man trouble way too early in life. I should punch every single tooth out of Q’s face for that, actually. Will you hold on a minute? I’m gonna add that to my schedule …” 

“Wade,” Peter interrupts in a hiss through his teeth. He’s trying not to let his voice rise to full shouting volume, but they’re still getting some looks from the tables nearby. “Leave Q alone. Q’s not a problem I need you to solve.”

“Some things I do just for the fun of it.”

“I actually need a different favor,” Peter says.

He watches as Wade’s expressive face slumps, and his bright hazel eyes move to his hands.

“Petey, you know I’d do practically anything for you,” he says. “But I can’t get involved in this mess you’re in right now. I gotta think about Ness and Ellie. They’re depending on me. And I get my ass thrown in jail again, Vanessa is not waiting around for me.”

The irony isn’t lost on Peter that, of all the men from his unit, Wade Wilson – the one they all thought was off his rocker – is the only one who’s managed to maintain a healthy family life since the war ended. Maybe the Old Man would have made it if not separated from his family by a fucking ocean. Who knows? 

But Wade had taken up with a local girl, a member of the French Resistance who practically gold-medaled in the sport of seducing Nazi soldiers in local bars and then shooting them in the head once they took her home. She’d tried the same trick on Wade one night when he was working undercover, and it had apparently been love at first shot. Six years later, and they’re still going strong. They even have an adorable four-year-old, Ellie. It’s all disturbingly functional.

Peter waves the waiter over to them, bringing omelets and coffee. Peter’s stomach is beginning to burn from all the bad coffee he’s consumed in the past two hours waiting on Wade. He takes another sip. Penance or chemical addiction, who can say, really?

“I promise I don’t want to get you into any trouble,” he tells Wade once the waiter is gone. “This isn’t even really related to my business. It’s a simple B and E. You could do it in your sleep. I’d do it myself except I set off the red alert everywhere I go anymore.”

“Uh-huh,” Wade says. “Sure it is.”

“It’s not even stealing, really,” Peter says. “It’s just retrieving a few things from my old place that I left behind in my haste.” 

“You mean when the French secret service surrounded your apartment in an attempt to arrest you for espionage.”

“Yeah,” Peter says. “That.” 

“Well, if that’s all …”

Wade’s face is settling into one of its rare stubborn attitudes, so Peter widens his own eyes and looks up at Wade through his lashes.

Wade purses his lips together in a moue of distaste.

“Alright, alright,” he says, grumpily. “Don’t lay those Bambi eyes on me. That’s not fair. Tell me about the job.”

“I just need you to go to my old apartment in Biot. There’s a key under the petunia pot on the stoop. The floorboard three from the right side of the bed is hollow. You’ll find a couple of notebooks and a half dozen glass vials about the size of your thumb. I need those.”

“You need them for what?” Wade asks suspiciously.

“Hey,” Peter replies, raising his hands palm up. “You said you wanted to stay out of my trouble. You don’t ask too many questions, that can still happen.”

Peter waits anxiously while Wade seems to waffle over his request. Eventually his expression resolves into one of uneasy acceptance.

“Fine,” he says. “Our usual drop at quarter past four. You wouldn’t screw me over here, would you Petey? At least not unless it was in the fun way.”

“Somehow I don’t think Vanessa would approve,” Peter says, with a helpless smile.

“Well, not unless she got a turn too. You know, Petey, our anniversary is coming up, and nothing says I love you like bringing an enthusiastic third party into the mix.” 

The laughter feels almost cathartic after everything that’s happened in the past 24 hours. And if it also comes out a little strained and fades too quickly, well, that makes sense too.

“Thank you, Wade,” he says, at last. “I really appreciate this.”

“Yeah, well,” Wade grumbles. “You are gonna owe me just so many favors.”

“So many,” Peter agrees.

“Speaking of, you wanna tell me what you really wanted to talk about chickadee?”

“That is what I …”

“Oh, come on, Sugar Plum. You can tell Uncle Wadey,” 

And with that, he reaches across the table to pat Peter’s hand sympathetically with one of his own giant, scarred bear paws and eyes him knowingly.

“Just let it out.”

And Peter just crumples, bringing his head into contact with the table and burying his head behind his crossed arms.

“I don’t know how you do it, with Vanessa,” he mumbles into the wood.

“Well, Ness and I firmly believe that variety is the spice of life,” Wade says. “So the combinations have been pretty limitless so far. She does this one thing with her …”

“Stop.”

Peter reaches out blindly to put a finger over Wade’s lips.

“I do not need to hear about any of … That.”

He shudders a little, then manages to get himself into a mostly upright position.

“Sorry,” Wade shrugs. “I just get a little excited.”

“What I mean is, you’re a killer, Wade,” he says, in a low voice. “I’m not saying that … I am too. But you were the best assassin the SSR ever trained. It’s in your blood. How do you manage to keep that side of yourself away? How do you know that you’re not going to …”

“Hurt her?”

The look of betrayal on Wade’s face makes Peter’s chest ache anew. He rubs at his eyes with his palms.

“Shit, Wade. I didn’t mean that. I’m running on no sleep, and I’m trying to make analogies that don’t work. I know that you would never hurt Vanessa. It’s myself I don’t trust.”

“Break it down for me, baby boy,” Wade says gently.

“Right,” Peter says. “To summarize. I met this guy.”

And Peter really likes this about Wade, the way he bounces back from just about anything you could throw at him. Now, a wide, elastic smile is stretching across his face.

“Checked all your boxes, did he?”

“Christ, every single fucking one.” 

“Older?” Wade asks with a raised eyebrow.

Peter rolls his eyes at him.

“Yes,” he says. “If you must know.”

“Knew it,” Wade says. “You got a type, baby boy.”

“Alright, so I’m predictable,” Peter says with a shrug. “Older, yes. Handsome. Capable. A genius.”

“You’re such a poindexter,” Wade says. “That gets the lip bite? Really?”

Self-consciously, Peter releases his lower lip from the hook of his teeth.

“So what’s the problem?” Wade asks. “Seems like you found someone nice to lay low with, you tell it like that.”

“Last night he told me something,” Peter confides. “A secret. It’s a doozy. Wade, it’s the kind of thing I could use to destroy him utterly. And when he told me, my mind immediately went to all the ways I could use that information. I didn’t even hesitate. I just ... I don’t think I can turn that part of my brain off.” 

Peter works to slow his breathing, not to go back to that moment of panic on the boat, not to jump off the deep end again. He swallows thickly, takes a sip of his horrible coffee. Continues. 

“And he just trusts me,” Peter says, lowly. “Like there’s nothing to be afraid of. Like I’m not poison.”

He looks up from his hands clenched around his coffee cup to look Wade in the eye.

“I know the only solution is to leave him alone, keep him out of my business. So why does that feel so impossible?” 

Wade leans back in his chair, hooking his arms over the wooden slats, and looking at Peter appraisingly.

“You know,” he says, after a beat. “Sometimes I forget how fucking young you are.”

Peter huffs at that, runs his fingers through already-disastrous hair and tugs to keep himself a little grounded.

“Please don’t minimize this,” he mutters. “I know it sounds ridiculous. But I’m dealing with life or death dynamics here.”

“I’m not trying to patronize, baby boy,” Wade says. “I’m just trying to remind myself that you don’t have a lot of experience in this area.”

He waves away Peter’s raised eyebrow. 

“I don’t mean dirty deeds in dark alleyways, my little crumpet. I mean romance. Relationships. Normal, real-life, shit. You are not accustomed to these things.”

“Yeah,” Peter says. “That is part of my point here, Wade.”

“Okay,” Wade says with a put-upon sigh. “Take Ness and me for example. We’re both killers. Certified. Done and dusted. And at any point in time, we both got our itchy little fingers waggling over our guns. But we made a decision, ever since that first night, that we would put our backs together and aim at the rest of the world instead of each other. Because sometimes you need somebody at your back.” 

“That’s a lovely sentiment,” Peter says. “I just don’t see how it …”

“That’s what love is,” Wade says in a harsh whisper, leaning over the table to get into Peter’s space. “This is what I’m trying to tell you, Petey. It’s taking a loaded gun, handing it to another person, getting down on your goddamn knees and trusting that, even with that perfect target, they aren’t going to shoot.” 

Peter feels a headache forming behind his eyes. He closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose to try and quell it.

“Nobody said anything about …”

“See, Petey, you’ve been handed some ammunition. That’s true. But the question I got for you is this. You keep talking about how you could destroy your guy. Are you sure he couldn’t do the same thing to you? Because I gotta tell you, you ain’t looking exactly in one piece to me.” 

Peter’s eyes flutter open to look at Wade. The other man quirks his head to one side in question.

Peter has been awake for more than 24 hours. His hair is stiff with salt from the sea. His skin smells vaguely like fish. He is wearing a stranger’s ill-fitting clothes. He has been dodging arrest for a crime he didn’t commit for three days, and the only thing he can concentrate on is the open, hopeful expression on Tony Stark’s face when he pressed Peter’s fingers to the device keeping his heart beating. He is in so many pieces, he’s practically dust.

“I’m so fucked,” he says on a long exhale.

“There, there,” Wade says, patting his hand. “It’s gonna be shit for a while. But then you get through the shit, and it’s kind of nice.”

“I hate you, Wade Wilson.”

“Love you too, Petey.”

*

Peter can admit that he’s a little dazed when he leaves the café. He’s trying and failing not to think about … Things. Lots of things. Specific things. Which has to be the only reason that his tail is able to get so close without him noticing. He’s been walking for about half an hour, down shaded cobblestone sheets in a mostly residential neighborhood when the hairs on his arms start to rise.

He slows his breathing and finally catches it. Footsteps that slow when his slow, speed up when his do. Peter stops in front of a store front – a small chocolaterie with ornate dark chocolate seashells and conchs laid out on marzipan sand in the window display. He pretends to adjust his ill-fitting shirt and glances behind him out of the corner of his eye.

There, knelt down re-tying a shoe, a dark fisherman’s cap mostly camouflaging blond hair. He’s the only person besides Peter stopped on the street.

The footsteps recommence when he starts to walk again, and a surge of adrenaline hits Peter’s bloodstream. He leads his tail along a series of sharp turns and down a steep hill until he can turn, finally, into an outdoor market along the promenade.

There are hundreds of people milling about, crowding the narrow lanes in between lines of colorful stalls selling bundles of vibrant flowers, mounds of fresh fruit and vegetables, trinkets made of seashells and twine. A busker stands in the middle of the way, playing Punchinello loud enough to be heard over the crosstalk, people streaming by on either side of him like he’s a boulder in a current. 

Peter can’t hear the footsteps anymore, but he’s sure that the man is still there behind him. He can feel it tingling down his spine. He slips through the crowd, taking sharp turn after turn through the labyrinth of stalls, waiting for that itch to go away. But it doesn’t. 

He passes by a fishmonger’s stall and reaches out with nimble fingers to pluck the slim knife used to shuck fresh oysters open from the bench. When he nears the edge of the market stalls, he slides whippet-quick into an alleyway between a bar and a bookmaker’s.

Peter has the knife to his pursuer’s throat as soon as the man enters the alley. His other hand holds the man’s left arm back at a painful angle against his shoulder blades. There’s something poking Peter in the stomach, and when he looks down, he sees it’s a sleek bow hanging from the man’s shoulder. _What the hell?_

“Usually I’d say don’t bring a bow to a knife fight, except I’m sort of glad you did,” Peter says, lightly, into the man’s ear.

“Well, that’s just because you haven’t seen me use the bow,” the man replies.

His accent is clearly American. Not DST, then. The SSR? Did Tony really call them down on Peter’s head after last night? He puts a little extra pressure on the man’s arm and holds the knife steady.

“Tell me who you are and why you’re following me, and your blood stays inside your body,” Peter says.

“Very kind,” the man says. “That is generally where I prefer it. I didn’t come for a fight, though, Parker. I got a job to do.”

Peter couldn’t tell you, after, exactly what the man does then. But it only takes a few decisive moves before Peter has his face planted uncomfortably against the cobblestones, a knee securely placed in the middle of his back, his arms pinioned over his head.

“Oof,” Peter exhales sharply.

Behind him, there’s a crackling of static.

“This is Hawkeye to Mother Goose, Hawkeye to Mother Goose. Do you copy?”

“Wait,” Peter says, his voice muffled because most of his face is mashed against the road. “ _The_ Hawkeye?”

Hawkeye was a legendary spy. Peter’s unit had been playing kiddie games compared to him. There are rumors he took out a whole Nazi bunker all by himself and left every single member of the offiziere with an arrow through their heads.

Peter had been struggling before, to flip the larger man off of him, to get his hands free. But he stills now, knowing that he could never get far enough away from him before he’d be dead. 

“One and only kiddo,” the man replies, absently. “Hawkeye to Mother Goose. Come in, Mother Goose.”

He slams a grey brick of a walkie-talkie down on the ground near Peter’s face, and Peter flinches.

“This futzing thing,” Hawkeye mutters. “I think I’d rather go back to smoke signals.”

He slams the walkie-talkie down on the ground again, and it crackles loudly. Then a voice comes through, occluded but audible.

“Hawkeye, this is Mother Goose, we copy. Please report.” 

It’s Phil’s voice over the line, and Peter relaxes just fraction. A part of him knows that Phil is a spy, and obviously capable of cold-blooded calculations. But another part finds it hard to connect the calm presence of Phil Coulson with someone who would call out this kind of hit on Peter. 

“Futzing finally,” Hawkeye mutters. “Wellness check on Spiderling is green, Mother Goose.” 

“Spiderling?” Peter exclaims, because it’s insulting. It really is. “You know, I’d really prefer to choose my own codename here.”

“Is that him?”

The new voice over the walkie-talkie is anxious, breaking a little on the last word. Peter’s chest aches at the sound of it. _Tony_.

“Proceed with wellness check, Hawkeye.” 

It seems like Phil has taken back control of communications.

“Don’t know what you’re looking for here, boss,” Hawkeye says. “Moving under his own steam, no obvious injuries or blood loss. Able to pull a knife and get a jump on me.”

“No _obvious_ injuries,” Tony’s voice takes over again, angry. “How about doing your fucking job, Barton …”

“Hey!” Hawkeye yells. “Codenames!” 

“Apologies, Hawkeye,” Phil says, with a warning in his voice. “Please do a physical check for injuries.” 

“Copy, Mother Goose.”

Hands begin to run over Peter’s body, assessing and professional. 

“What precisely are you looking for?” Peter asks. “Because I could maybe help you out here.”

“You got any broken bones, Spiderling?” 

“No,” Peter grunts as a harsh hand presses down on his collarbone. “No broken bones. No injuries.”

“Well, it’s your skin,” Hawkeye – or is it Barton? – says. “You would know.” 

He removes his knees from Peter’s back and stands. Peter slowly rolls over, bringing a hand to cradle his jaw, sore from where it’s been pressed into stone. Slowly, he rolls to his feet. Barton is in the mouth of the alley talking into the walkie-talkie. Peter leans against the wall to wait. He could try to run, but it’s pretty clear by this point that the man doesn’t intend him any harm. The opposite, apparently.

After a few minutes, Barton walks back toward him. He stands before Peter with his massive arms crossed, irritated grimace on his face. 

“Ok, Spiderling, here’s the deal I’ve got for you. In 24 hours, you check in with Coulson or Stark. Boss says he doesn’t care which. You do that, everything’s fine. You don’t, I have to hunt you down again. That happens, I’m gonna be real annoyed at you wasting my time, and it’s not gonna be fun for you. Understand?”

“Yes sir,” Peter says, giving him a little sarcastic salute.

“Look, Parker,” Barton says, running a hand through his hair. “I don’t know what this is all about, but I’ve never seen Stark go full-on sky-is-falling like this before. He’s used to protecting the people he cares about, but this is something different. Even I can tell.”

The words make Peter feel nauseous. He’s been so focused on the hurt he could cause Tony that he hasn’t really considered the damage he’s already done. That strangled cry across dark waves echoes in his mind.  

“I’m not sure what you’re trying to say, Mr. Barton …”

“I’m saying that if you hurt him, I hurt you. That simple enough for you?”

The hand that Barton places on his bow is an echo of the actual threat, and is far more effective.

“I do appreciate clarity,” Peter says.

“Then there’s nothing else to say.”

Barton turns on his heel and walks away, sending a backhanded wave in Peter’s direction.

“24 hours, Parker!” he calls back.

*

The sea air whips through Peter’s hair, tying it in knots. Overhead, gulls swoop and dive, screeching their grating cries. He’s up high on the roof of a bank building that faces the Hotel Carlton, a pair of binoculars trained on the window of Phil’s room. Tony’s, of course, has an ocean view, but Phil had luckily been assigned a more prosaic space.

Peter still thinks the thief is most likely to strike during the weekend summit up at the villa, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t good to keep an eye on things in the meantime. He’s got nervous energy that he needs to put into something, and this is what he’s chosen. 

Reconnaissance is always a hit or miss endeavor. Sometimes you get lucky, and sometimes you spend hours staring into empty rooms waiting for literally anything to happen. 

Today, shockingly, Peter is lucky. The room has clearly become a center of operations, a large communications unit set up on the table in the living area. Phil is seated there, a center of calm in the middle of the storm. Barton had stormed in about an hour after Peter had climbed, free-handed, onto the bank roof.

Peter had watched while he’d given Phil his report, ticked-off about something, though what Peter couldn’t be sure of. Perhaps being put on babysitting duty. That might, in fact, do it.

There’s a woman in the room as well, someone Peter doesn’t recognize. She has bobbed red hair and a serious expression on her face that sends a cold chill down Peter’s spine.

He’s focusing on these details because he’s trying very hard not to spend all his time just studying Tony, who is currently wearing a trench in the carpet pacing. 

The man’s posture is tense, his back a taut line of muscle, dark circles clear under his eyes even from this distance. He looks a wreck, and that nauseous feeling is back in Peter’s stomach. He did that. He did that. And he has to fix it. Somehow …

He leans forward with the binoculars, tracing Tony’s clenched fists, the veins bulging along his arms with his eyes, as though he can somehow exude a soothing pressure with that non-existent touch. 

This fruitless endeavor is interrupted when the door to the rooftop bangs open. Peter looks back to see Q coming through the door.

“Good,” Q says. “You are here. Had to talk my way up here. Not easy. People can be so distrusting.”

Peter can’t help but look at him with suspicion.

“How, exactly did you know I would be here?” he asks.

Q just shrugs.

“Wanda said you would be. I’ve always said that woman was a witch.”

Peter tilts his head in acknowledgement of the fact.

“And you wanted to find me because?”

“I was sent,” Q says. “With lunch.”

He pulls a somewhat crumpled paper bag out of an inner pocket of his jacket and holds it out to Peter. Then he moves to settle beside Peter on his his stomach, and trades him the bag for the binoculars. 

“Wouldn’t have pegged you for a voyeur, Peter,” Q says with a wicked grin.

“It’s part of the job,” Peter defends. And it is, partly.

He pulls two waxed-paper wrapped sandwiches out of the bag, handing one over to Q and taking the other for himself. When he unwraps it, it releases the heavenly aroma of fried ham and cheese. His stomach gives a longing grumble as he bites into the croque monsieur. 

“So you really think Stark has something worth stealing?” Q asks, lowering the binoculars and unwrapping his own sandwich.

“Best guess,” Peter hedges. “For the record, I intended to stop that from happening, not do the stealing.”

“Oh, of course,” Q says with a smirk. “You’re nothing if not noble.”

Peter sighs.

“What happened, Q?” he asks. “We used to be friends, didn’t we? A long time ago? Why are you so determined to make me into the villain here?”

“I don’t think you’re a villain,” Q says. “No shame in robbing from the rich in my book. But you gotta stop acting like you’re some kind of a martyr, Peter. You’re no better than the rest of us.”

“I don’t think that.”

“Coulda fooled me.”

Peter just shakes his head and crumples up the waxed paper from his sandwich.

“What’s the point?” he asks himself. “You can tell Wanda you checked in on me. Just go, Q. You obviously want to.” 

“Offer of help still stands, little Spider,” Q says, getting to his feet. “When you really need it, you know who to call.” 

He heads back out the door, letting it slam shut behind him. The whole interaction leaves Peter feeling uneasy. There’s something. Something niggling at the back of his mind, but he can’t untangle it.

He doesn’t have time to suss it out now, though. The clock is striking four, and if he wants to get to Wade’s drop point in time, he has to get going now. He raises his binoculars for one last look, but finds the room empty. Tony’s gone … Somewhere. It isn’t Peter’s business where. But the longing to know is unavoidable, a persistent drumming in his head that’s getting harder and harder to resist. 

Turning away, Peter grabs the ledge off the roof and starts a slow descent to the ground.

*

Maybe it was always going to end here, with Peter standing in front of Tony Stark’s door. He just decided to take the scenic route.

New web shooters filled with the spare fluid Wade had returned to him, he’d swung here, through the back streets under the cover of night. And when he’d extended his arm to send out a web, he’d felt the weight of the gift Tony had given him settle more firmly into his bones. He protects the people he cares about, Barton had said. Peter felt the care of the gesture every time his webbing caught at a roofline and carried him smoothly through to the next.

Which doesn’t mean it’s easy to knock on the door. Maybe Tony will laugh in his face. Maybe he’ll decide that Peter isn’t worth the effort after all. _Come on, Parker,_ he tells himself. _Show a little courage._ Rejection isn’t fatal. It just hurts like hell. He raises his fist and knocks.

Tony looks haggard when he opens the door, the dark half-moons under his eyes are even more prominent than they were from a distance, and his usually immaculate beard is starting to fill in with unruly stubble. But he still looks beautiful, so much so that Peter aches with the desire to pull him in closer.

His eyes show his surprise at Peter’s presence, but the rest of his face is unmoved.

“Not drowned then,” he says, eyes running over Peter as though to make sure that he is, in fact, unharmed. “Good to know. And what do you call this, kid?”

Peter swallows thickly, feels the ache of the muscles in his throat as a warning. He should have thought this part through.

He shrugs, and in the absence of a line tells the truth.

“Mutually assured destruction?”

Tony looks at him with a question in his eyes, and Peter doesn’t know what other answer to give, certain that that’s exactly what this is and yet unable to stop himself. 

He surges forward, capturing Tony’s lips with his own. There’s resistance, at first, his muscles contracting in shock. But then Peter licks at the seam of his lips and he opens, warm and welcoming. That gasp is just as delicious as Peter dreamed it would be. He devours it and immediately wants more.

He presses in so that their chests bump, and they tumble back into Tony’s room. Peter barely, barely has the foresight to blindly push the door shut behind them. He brings his hands up to cling to the collar of Tony’s shirt. The sensation of the other man’s tongue stroking, slow and purposeful, against his own lights the nerve endings down Peter’s spine.

His hands move up to hook around strong shoulders for support. It’s completely overwhelming, the sensation of Tony surrounding him – his taste bitter with coffee and whisky, his smell of leather and citrus and hot metal, his hands rough and gripping at Peter’s forearms. Following a path he hasn’t quite plotted, Peter’s lips brush along the prominent line of Tony’s cheekbone, and then he pushes up onto his toes to pull his earlobe between his teeth.

The groan he gets in response is enough to bring him back to Tony’s lips, eager to swallow that reaction down as well. Tony’s fingers press even harder into his skin, coal hot and perfect.

“Kid,” he mouths against Peter’s lips. “Kid, stop.”

Peter concedes, moving his lips back a few centimeters, but pressing their foreheads together so that he can still feel Tony’s ragged breaths against his face.

“Don’t make me stop,” he says, nuzzling against him. “Please.”

A steady hand against the back of his neck forces him flat on his feet, breaking them apart fully but for that one connection. 

“What brought this on?” Tony asks, dark eyes focused completely on Peter. There’s lust there, definitely, but also hurt. So much hurt. “Last night you literally jumped off a boat to get away from me. Now you show up at my door and you’re all over me. I can’t … I need to know what this is for you, Pete.” 

“I don’t know if I can put it into words,” Peter says.

The thing in his chest feels too big for articulation. Too big, almost, to even acknowledge.

“Try,” Tony says. “I need you to try, kid.”

It’s the little waver in his voice that breaks down the last of the defenses that Peter’s been desperately clinging to, hoping he could hold a little something back. He opens his mouth to explain Wade’s theories about mutual destruction, about fighting his own instincts.

“I think I’m falling in love with you,” is what comes out instead.

Peter’s chest constricts at his own words. He immediately wants to reel them back into his stupid mouth. Not because they aren’t true. He feels the truth of them in his bones. But he never meant to say them. He’s known this man for three days. _Three days_. How could a confession like that do anything but terrify him?

“That can’t be right, can it?” Peter says, following the words with a laugh that sounds hysterical even to his own ears.

“I can see how that would be disconcerting,” Tony says, tone oddly calm.

The hand at the back of Peter’s neck moves to cup the side of his face, a callused thumb running along his cheek. Peter can’t help but lean into the touch, letting his eyes slip close. 

“But tell me how exactly that led to you jumping off my boat?” Tony asks. 

Peter blinks his eyes open slowly, with effort, gaze focusing hazily on Tony’s mouth, those sculpted lips he wants on his. His thumb is still rubbing gently against Peter’s skin.

“I was afraid,” he says, voice a dry rasp. “That I would hurt you, if I got too close.”

“And you aren’t afraid of that anymore?”

Peter shakes his head, slowly. 

“I won’t,” he says. “It would only be hurting myself. But you could … You could destroy me with a word.”

Tony’s hand grips at Peter’s hair, unexpectedly harsh. Their eyes clash as Peter looks up in shock at the rough touch. Tony’s eyes are burning with a wild, foxfire light.

“I won’t,” he breathes out. “I won’t.”

Peter places a hand on Tony’s forearm, follows those firm muscles up until his fingers rest against the ones the other man still has tangled in Peter’s hair.

“I think I know that, now, too,” he says.

Tony initiates the kiss this time, and it’s almost unbearably gentle. To Peter, it feels like an undeserved benediction. Their lips brush together in a whisper once, twice. He can’t stand more, bites at Tony’s bottom lip to cut the tenderness. Wants it, so badly, but can’t stand too much. Not yet. Maybe never.

He feels Tony smile even as Peter worries his lip between his teeth. 

“You are going to be the death of me, you wild thing,” Tony groans.

Peter bumps forward to seal their lips together, to claim that sound and all the ones that follow. His now. All his. Then, clumsily, he starts to undo the buttons on Tony’s crisp white shirt.

It’s a piece too-finely made for Peter in this moment. All his dexterity seems to have moved to other portions of his body, and his fingers are clumsy, those button holes too small, buttons too slick.

Tony chuckles at his ineptitude and takes over with the buttons, moving Peter’s hands up to his neck instead while he flicks the last of them open smoothly and slips the shirt off his shoulders.

Peter pulls his mouth away from the juncture of Tony’s jaw to be able to look his fill. True, he’d seen it all last night. But this time he traces with his fingers as well as his eyes, moving down from Tony’s neck to a chest wiry and strong with muscle. His hands skirt the glowing arc reactor, dipping down to follow the central line of a firm stomach, tracing his bellybutton teasingly and feeling the muscles contract at his touch.

Then he leans forward and brings his lips instead of his hands to the seam of skin that joins the reactor to Tony’s body. He feels the smooth scar tissue under his lips and then licks out so he can taste the clean salt tinge of Tony’s sweat along with the metallic tang of the reactor.

He feels the gasp the action elicits, and flicks his eyes up the line of Tony’s chest to his face. His eyes are closed, lids trembling delicately. 

“Can you feel me?” he asks, lapping further along the edge of the reactor. “Or are the nerve endings dead here?”

“I can feel you,” Tony whispers his confirmation. “It’s like … Electricity.”

“In a good way?”

“Very good,” Tony says, with a swift nod. “But I need you to stop now.”

He pulls Peter up and away from the reactor by the chin, and then starts tugging at his shirt.

“Off,” he demands, and Peter compliantly raises his arms to have the too-large shirt shucked over his head. 

As soon as this task is done, Tony is backing him into the bedroom, lips on his neck, fingers starting out on his hips and traveling soothingly up his torso until the backs of Peter’s knees hit the foot of the mattress with a jolt and he tumbles back onto the bed, bouncing.

Peter leans back on his elbows and watches Tony hovering above him at the foot of the bed.

“Pants,” he says, with a snap of his fingers, and Peter feels himself complying automatically, cheeks flushing with something that isn’t quite shame, but isn’t not that.

He unties the cord he’s been using as a belt and then unbuttons the pants, stripping them off and kicking them off the side of the bed without concentrating too much on the sight he’s exposing. He’s hard enough to cut fucking diamonds, the tip of his cock flushed almost purple where it bobs next to his stomach.

Peter’s sexual experiences to this point have been mostly anonymous, and largely conducted in haste and concluded quickly and furtively. He realizes with a jolt that this may be the first time he’s been fully naked in front of another man outside of short, awkward moments in barracks showers.

He experiences a brief but terrifying moment of self-doubt before raising his eyes to where Tony stands at the end of the bed. His pupils are blown wide, raking Peter’s body in a way that he can almost feel like fingers trailing down his skin. It’s enough to give Peter a little heart.

“Were you just gonna look, or …”

“Can you blame me for admiring the view?” Tony asks. “First time I saw you I thought you looked like something carved out of marble, and I was not wrong.” 

But Peter’s words do seem to spur him to action. He kneels on the end of the bed, then crawls up to cover Peter’s body with his own and give him s a kiss, tongue delving in to explore his upturned mouth.

The weight of Tony’s body above him is a comfort that Peter sighs into, and he whines a protest when the man sits up and pulls away. He kneels between Peter’s spread legs, cupping his thighs with two big hands and massaging at the tendons there with gentle fingers.

“Tell me how you want to do this, kid,” he demands. “I’ll give you anything you want.”

Peter’s brain seems to run into a wall at the question. It takes him a long moment to even comprehend what Tony’s asking.

“I … What?”

Before, there had never been a question. Peter is young and slight. He looks scrawny before his clothes come off and his muscles reveal themselves. His role in proceedings has always been predetermined. He’s had few complaints, but no one has ever bothered to ask him for his preference.

By the time Peter manages to pull himself out of his own head, Tony is looking down at him with concern etched into the lines on his face.

“Kid,” he says, warily. “You have done this before, haven’t you?” 

The laughter that emerges out of Peter’s chest is a bubbling, effervescent thing. He stretches up to kiss Tony just because he can.

“Yes,” he says, giddily. “I have. And I want you to fuck me.” 

The growl that elicits from Tony is immensely satisfying. He pushes Peter back down onto the mattress and reaches across him to fumble around in the nightstand, coming back with a small metal tin that he tosses onto the bedspread beside Peter’s hip.

Peter leans back onto the pillows, letting his eyes slip closed so he can enjoy the feeling of hands rubbing up and down his thighs. He’s not expecting the nip that follows in the wake of those hands, or the hot trail of Tony’s tongue along his length that follows. 

“Christ,” he sputters, eyes flying open to see Tony sucking the tip into the warm cavern of his mouth. The sensation nearly makes Peter’s eyes roll back in his head. Still spread out, he reaches down to catch hold of Tony’s shoulder. 

“You … You don’t have to,” he protests, faintly.

Tony releases him with an obscene pop of his lips.

“There is so little I actually have to do, Pete,” he says, the gravelly tone of his voice sending a shiver through Peter’s body. “Let me.” 

He noses at the thatch of dark hair at Peter’s groin, eyes never leaving Peter’s face as he does. He’s waiting for words. Words that resolutely will not come. Peter’s brain is sparking and fizzing at the feeling of Tony’s hot breath against him. Instead of speaking, he nods dumbly and goes absolutely pliant with relief and pleasure as Tony’s mouth settles over his cock once more, taking him down further this time and grinning a wicked grin the whole time. The image is going to be burned into his brain for an eternity.

Peter arches back into the sensation, tries not to let his breath come out too ragged when he feels a finger stroke against his entrance. Jesus, the man has clever fingers, sending little tendrils of pleasure through his body even as they breach his barriers.

It shouldn’t be a surprise that Tony is gentle with him, but somehow it is. He treats Peter like a fragile thing, sensitive to the slightest clench or shiver from his body, taking an excruciating amount of time just in opening him up. By the time he’s up to three fingers, Peter can’t stand it any longer. Like before, he drinks up the gentleness, but only so far.

He tugs Tony up into a bruising kiss, tasting his own musk as he sucks on his tongue, and they both groan at the sensation. Then, using all of his core strength, Peter flips them so he’s kneeling on either side of Tony’s still-clothed thighs, looking down at him with what must be a very self-satisfied smile when the move elicits a shocked “Oof” from his partner.

The other man’s eyes are saucer-round with an intoxicating mix of shock and lust. 

“You got a plan here, Pete?” he asks, the gravelly timbre of his voice doing wonderful things to the pleasure centers of Peter’s brain.

“I got some ideas,” Peter confirms, running a hand up Tony’s hard length and relishing the way his eyelids flutter at the movement. “For starters, I think you have too many clothes on.” 

“Shit,” Tony says. “Agreed.”

They scrabble together to divest Tony of his pants, losing a minute to silent laughter when they get tangled on his feet. But eventually they settle and finally, finally Peter is steadying himself and sinking down slowly until he’s fully seated.

For a long moment he has to brace his hands against Tony’s chest, on either side of the reactor, trembling and adjusting to the exquisite fullness.

“Fuck, kid,” Tony whispers, hoarsely.

At first, Peter thinks he’s going to follow it with some sort of smartass retort, but nothing comes but for another broken off “Fuck.” Robbed of quips, then. Good. Because Peter is, too.

He starts out with a slow rocking motion, but it doesn’t take long for his movements to grow more frenzied. He makes minute adjustments until Tony’s hitting that perfect spot with every rock and thrust.

Then Peter abandons all semblance of control. There is a tempest roiling through his body, overtaking and battering him, and he is lost but for the harsh grasp of Tony’s hands on his hips, thumbs digging into the notches between his legs and groin. 

He’s like a sailor tied to the mast during a storm, that painful grip the only thing keeping him from losing himself to the buffeting waves and lashing rain. Peter doesn’t have to brace or hold himself in check because Tony is there, holding him steady.

Except the next moment he’s drawing his hands up Peter’s hips and over the shifting muscles of his back and saying something.

“Let go, kid,” Tony intones. “I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”

And Peter does, feels himself tumble, directionless, through waves of pleasure, gasping for a breath but unable to find any air until he reaches the crest and feels those overwhelming sensations ebb away.

With a few more thrusts, Tony is arching up and following Peter over the edge and they collapse into one another, a sticky, tangled mess.

Peter hums into the sensation of fingers carding through his hair, placing feather-light kisses on the parts of Tony’s skin that he can reach without moving. 

Soon enough they’ll have to move, untangle their limbs, clean themselves up. But for now, Peter thinks, it’s ok to stay just like this.

“I want to drown in you,” he whispers into Tony’s collarbone, his words slurring where his lips catch on skin. 

Maybe he’s too dazed to understand, or maybe the words don’t come out clear enough, but Tony just shakes his head and pulls Peter in closer to him. 

“Won’t let you drown, Pete” he murmurs drowsily. “Promise.”

*

The space beside him in the bed is cold when Tony wakes. It’s the middle of the night, and for a second he has the panicked thought that he dreamed the whole thing, imagined Peter in his bed, coming apart in his arms.

Then he notices a flickering light outside the French doors, and it calms the patter of his heart a little. He throws his legs over the side of the bed and slips on his discarded trousers before slipping out onto the balcony.

Sure enough, Peter is there, bare-chested, stretched out in a lounge chair, taking a long drag on a cigarette.

Studying him, Tony is amazed at how delicate the component parts of him are – the cup of his hand as he lights his cigarette, the soft curve of his lips, the fragile shell of his ear – and how strong he is despite that. His mind lingers, not for the first time, on how Peter had just _flipped_ them in bed earlier. It had seemed to take hardly any effort at all.

Tony sniffs the air quizzically and recognizes the scent with a bubble of amusement.

“Really, Mr. Parker” he says, crossing his arms and leaning against the doorframe. “Reefer? What am I going to do with you?” 

Peter turns his face to Tony, a slow smile spreading across his face.

“Well, Mr. Stark, I trust you’ll come up with something creative.” 

Tony pulls a chair up beside Peter’s and settles himself, accepting the joint when it’s offered from a slightly trembling hand. Now that’s something Tony recognizes. He pulls the fragrant smoke into his lungs and holds it there for a beat before exhaling.

“Nightmares?” he asks.

Peter nods.

“I have a friend who gets this stuff for me to help me sleep after I’ve had one, but I’m not sure it helps much. Still can’t shake them.”

For a long while neither of them says anything, passing the joint back and forth between them.

“I have them too,” Tony offers. 

The peace and utter darkness of the night enveloping them help ease the confidences out of him. 

“I told you about Yinsen, back in Morocco. But he didn’t just save my life with this,” Tony says, tapping on the glowing surface of the reactor. “He also helped me escape. Sacrificed himself to let me get out of that fucking cave alive. That’s mostly what I see when I dream. The light going out of his eyes. I should have moved quicker, done better and maybe …”

He isn’t sure quite how to finish that sentence.

“Anyway, that’s what my nightmares are about. And sometimes whiskey helps, but only to knock me out. Not to make them go away.”

The only thing that fills the quiet between them is the distant crashing of waves against sand, a gentle _shush, shush, shush._

“I always dream about bombs,” Peter says, finally. Tony can tell his face is pale and drawn despite the absence of light. “The heat, the blowback, buildings crumbling around me. And … not people, but their silhouettes. In ash. Because that’s all that’s left.”

“Jesus,” Tony whispers.

“In most of my dreams I’ve got minutes to stop one from exploding, but I can never do it. It’s an impossible task. But it’s still my fault when it happens.”

Tony watches as the expressions of fear and guilt flicker over Peter’s face, and he knows what an effort it must take for him to relive it, fresh on the heels of such a terror. He sees it for the gesture it is, an offering of trust.

“For the record, kid,” he says. “I love you too.” 

The fear doesn’t completely leave Peter’s eyes, but his expression is filled with something warmer, more hopeful, that eases a little of the pressure on Tony’s chest. 

“I know,” Peter replies, simply. “I know you do. You never tried to hide it.”

Technically, they’re out in public here on the balcony. On display. But the night hides them, protects them. So Tony reaches down to twine his fingers through Peter’s and squeezes, holds on tight.

An outsider, after all, would see nothing but the deep orange ember on the end of the joint being passed from hand to hand between two dark forms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I'm kind of stretching some new muscles here for me, and it feels like the equivalent of trying to do a pull up and not even being able to get my feet off the ground. But this is a safe space, right? Con crit welcome. 
> 
> A historical note: I have based Vanessa's back story on an actual lady, Freddie Oversteegen, who was a dutch resistance fighter during the war and did, in fact, seduce and then execute Nazi soldiers. I have no clue how there has not already been a biopic made about her, because I would option that story in a hot minute if I were in charge of such things. You can read more about her here: 
> 
> https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/freddie-oversteegen-dutch-resistance-fighter-who-killed-nazis-through-seduction-dies-at-92/2018/09/16/7876eade-b9b7-11e8-a8aa-860695e7f3fc_story.html?utm_term=.e7568eb05297.
> 
> Also, if you haven't seen it yet, feyrelay made a fabulous mood board for this fic that you can check out at the top of chapter one! 
> 
> Thanks for reading, ya'll!


	6. Chapter 6

In the golden light of morning, Peter’s face is like something plucked from a Caravaggio painting and brought to life – pale skin reflecting warm rays like it was made for that specific purpose. Tony’s eyes trace the dark sweep of his hair across an un-creased brow, the shadow of his lashes on his cheeks, the faint constellation of freckles across his nose.

It’s not as though it’s going to all be suddenly easy now that they’ve admitted to what’s really happening between them. There is still a shadow looming over their heads. Tony can admit that to himself. But with the promise of mornings like this, with Peter a warm bundle in his bed, the work before them seems significantly less daunting. 

The kid’s a light sleeper. Of course he would be, in his line of work. A soft smile spreading across his face is the first thing that alerts Tony that he’s rousing.

“You know, it’s creepy to just watch a guy sleep,” he says, eyes still closed. “Have I got drool on my face?” 

His voice is rough with sleep when he speaks, and the sound of it sends a tingle down Tony’s spine. 

“You know very well that your face is perfect, you little imp,” he replies while he watches Peter’s body arc up into a stretch.

Only after he’s finished stretching does he finally blink his eyes open to look up at Tony.

“Well, it doesn’t hurt my feelings any to hear you say it,” he says, leaning up for a kiss. 

“That what you want, Pete?” Tony breathes into the kid’s mouth when they break apart. “Want me to tell you how pretty you are?”

He feels the shiver that runs through Peter’s body at the words. Well, that’s clearly effective.

“Because you are, kid,” he whispers into the juncture of Peter’s jaw. “Perfect for me.”

He licks over Peter’s bobbing Adam’s apple, then attaches his lips just below the hollow of his throat to suck a bruise – somewhere it can be hidden when his shirt is done all the way up, but with just a few buttons popped can be put on delicious display. It’s Tony’s own watermark on the smooth canvas of Peter’s skin. 

Once he’s satisfied that the mark will purple nicely, he moves down Peter’s chest, running his lips along the sharp cut of a pectoral muscle. Then he darts his tongue along the tight bud of a nipple, eliciting a gasp from the kid.

Fingers thread through Tony’s hair and tighten, and Tony smiles against Peter’s skin and reapplies himself, laving barely-there circles around Peter’s nipple and then, when he has the kid panting, closing his lips around it and sucking.

Peter arches into him, seeking more. Tony obliges by reaching down between Peter’s legs and taking him in hand – hot, hard and quivering in his gentle grasp. He strokes once, twice, just to rev the kid up a little.

“Now the question,” he says as he drags his lips across the firm plane of Peter’s chest toward the other nipple. “Is what do do next. ‘Cause I gotta tell you Pete, I’ve been thinking about this a while, and I got a long list.”

“Like what?” Peter asks breathily.

“Wanna lick you open ‘til you’re all loose and needy for me. Wanna swallow you down to the root and feel you finish inside of me. Wanna bend you over and take you so hard it’ll erase the memory of anyone who ever came before.”

“J-Jesus,” Peter stammers. “Please.”

“It’s a difficult choice, though,” Tony continues. “Where to start …”

He sucks the other nipple into his mouth and revels in the needy little moan that comes from Peter when he scrapes his teeth across the nub. One stroke, another while he teases. 

Then there’s a startling _BANG_ from the living room, and Tony simultaneously bites down far too hard and squeezes and …

“Ow,” Peter grumbles, shuffling out from underneath him. “Jesus, Tony, what the …”

“I heard something …” 

Tony sees it first in the tension that runs up Peter’s body like a current. Suddenly every muscle in his body is frozen still down to the lids of his eyes, attention directed at the door of the bedroom.

“Hawkeye, report.”

That’s Coulson’s clipped tone coming at a distance. Tony turns around slowly, dragging his eyes away from Peter to find Barton standing in his doorway, an arrow knocked in his bow and pointed directly at the bed. 

“What, in every conceivable ring of hell, are you doing, Barton?” he asks, voice rising a little with every new word.

“Eyes on Spiderling, sir,” Barton calls back over his shoulder without ever letting his gaze leave the bed. “Appears to be unarmed.” 

He steps aside out of the doorway to let Coulson saunter through, impeccably turned out in his black suit. His expression, as ever, gives absolutely nothing away. Tony turns back to Peter to find him rubbing gingerly at his chest where Tony bit him. He tosses the sheet over the kid’s lower half to give him a little privacy.

Then he stretches out, on full display, and puts his hands behind his neck while he leans against the headboard. It’s a little concerning that this provokes not even a raised eyebrow from Coulson.

“Unfortunately, gentlemen, I won’t be taking applications for pinch hitters just at this moment, and I’m rather occupied, so perhaps you could tell me why you’re in my bedroom and then promptly remove yourselves.”

He makes emphatic shooing motions, so that there’s no doubt as to his desires. 

“Stark,” Coulson says, and there’s just a tiny tinge of worry to his voice that throws Tony off. “The reactor is missing.”

The bottom drops out of Tony’s stomach. 

“I’m sorry, what?” 

“It was apparently taken at some point during the night out of my room.”

“And where were you exactly?” Tony’s speaking too loudly, but he never actually expected the thing to go missing under Coulson’s nose. That’s why he had handed the thing over. He half expected the man to sit on it like a mother hen with an egg.

“On business for the director,” Coulson responds, coldly. “Business that I’ve just returned from to find our prototype gone.” 

Tony gestures angrily, tries out a couple of responses that die before they even leave his throat, and then goes with a simple, effective “Merde.” 

“Tell me you had time to put in those security measures we discussed?” 

“Hey, you were the one who wanted me to spend all that time on Lola, even though I told you a flying car is a time suck …”

“No,” Coulson says. “Do not lay this at my feet. You had a priority list, I made sure of it.”

“Yeah?” Tony asks. “And were you down in my lab every week to see if I’d finished security measures on the arc reactor?” 

Their eyes clash angrily and Coulson scowls. 

“So it can be reverse engineered?” he asks. 

“It would take a genius. Just a regular genius and not a me-level genius. But still.” 

“Jesus, Carter is going to have my balls.”

From his sentry in the doorway, Barton snorts. 

“That’s enough outta you, Hawkeye.”

“It’s just an … Arresting visual. Sir.”

Tony’s attention is drawn back to the archer, who hasn’t lowered his bow since he entered the room.

“Did you require ammunition to tell me the bad news?” he asks Coulson, shooting eyes at Barton, who shrugs an apology at him, aim unwavering.

“Don’t be stupid, Stark,” Coulson replies, rubbing at the bridge of his nose with a thumb. “You know why we’re here.” 

“Pretty sure you’ve got me at a loss here, agent.”

“Mr. Parker,” Coulson says, averting his eyes from where Peter is still sitting on Tony’s bed, quite naked but for the sheet in his lap. “Where were you between the hours of 8 p.m. last night and 6 a.m. this morning? And do you have any witnesses to corroborate your whereabouts?”

Peter opens his mouth to speak, but Tony reaches over to hook a hand around his ankle, indicating he should keep quiet. Something lightens in his chest, because hey, it looks like one issue hanging over them has been resolved. If someone else stole the reactor, the SSR will probably believe Peter when he says he didn’t steal the Tesseract either.

“He was with me,” he says. “Corroboration enough? Hey, look at that, Pete, my slatternly ways actually came in handy this time around. Who would’ve guessed?”

Peter manages a weak smile in his general direction, but it’s not the most convincing thing. He must not be getting the full implications here.

“The whole night?” Coulson pushes. “You had eyes on him the whole night?”

“Eyes, hands, mouth. I could go on, but …” he sweeps his eyes helpfully over Peter’s debauched face. Those kiss-swollen lips, the tangled hair, the beard burn along his jaw all tell a pretty clear story. 

“Stark,” Coulson says in a tone that drags Tony’s eyes away from Peter. “He is the only one who knew that the reactor was with me and not you. Hell, he was the only one outside of SSR personnel who knew for sure that it existed. I need you to think very carefully and be very honest with me right now.”

Tony blinks a couple times at Coulson’s vehemence. Then he turns back to Peter to see a frown forming, not reaching his lips yet but settling into the space between his eyebrows. The memories flick through Tony’s mind – waking up to a cold bed, the bright ember of a cigarette in the dark, the excuse of a nightmare. It’s just barely possible that his nimble, roof-clinging spider could have managed it. But the risk he would have taken of being caught out would have been enormous. He couldn’t know when or if Tony would have woken. But Peter’s never exactly been cautious …

Peter must see that instant of doubt in Tony’s eyes, because the frown slides from his face to be replaced with a horrible, perfect blankness. He reaches down to pluck his pants from the floor and hauls them on before standing. 

“Tell them,” he says in an empty tone that makes Tony’s skin crawl. “Go on. They need to know the facts of the case, Mr. Stark.”

It’s a punch in the gut. Back to Mr. Stark after hours and hours of Tony on Peter’s lips. He watches, transfixed, as Peter stands by the bed and nervously fingers the silver cuffs on his wrists. He hadn’t taken them off at all last night, and it had given Tony a thrill to know the kid was wearing something he had made. His own doubt makes that feeling curdle in his stomach, now.

“I woke up in the early hours of the morning, two or three, I think, and he was out on the balcony. But there was nothing to indicate he had gone anywhere. He had a nightmare. We sat up together for a while. Then we came back to bed. Together. And we’ve been here ever since.”

He looks at Peter while he talks, trying to imbue his words with what he really means. He trusts Peter. He does. He refuses to entertain those flickers of doubt any longer. Somehow, the message seems to get lost in translation. The kid’s eyes are darting around the room. He’s trying to find an exit that won’t end in him skewered with an arrow.

“You need to get Red on this, Coulson,” Tony concludes. “She’ll shake people down, figure out who’s responsible soon enough.”

“I know someone who could use some shaking …” Coulson mutters.

“Pardon me?”

“Stark, he’s known for climbing walls,” Coulson says in an insistent voice. “His codename is the Spider. He didn’t even have to use the front door.”

Coulson continues to rant, but Tony can’t quite concentrate. He’s watching Peter instead. Watching as he blindly tugs on a shirt – it’s Tony’s shirt, oversized on Peter, but a pale blue that compliments his complexion – and fumblingly buttons it as he paces from one end of the room to the other, balcony to closet. 

The balcony doors are open, letting in the salty morning breeze and the high-pitched cries of gulls as they dive for food. It adds a surreal touch to the proceedings.

“I need you to start thinking logically and stop thinking with your dick,” Coulson says, concluding his lecture.

The sentiment strikes a fire in Tony’s gut that starts his blood boiling.

“I’m sorry, what did you just say to me?”  

Peter has stopped pacing, standing by the closet door. Softly, he clears his throat, and all of Tony’s focus shifts automatically. 

Looking down at the ground, Peter shoots his cuffs nervously. When he raises his head, Tony could almost swear there are tears glistening in his eyes. His voice, when he speaks, is soft but forceful.

“I just want it on record that I’m not leaving here with anything that wasn’t freely given to me,” he says, meeting Tony’s eyes for a brief moment to let the accusation there tunnel its way under his skin. 

For a split second, Tony’s brows knit together in confusion. Barton still has an arrow trained on Peter. He and Coulson are blocking the door.

“Goodbye, Tony,” he says.

Then Peter sprints for the open balcony doors, one of Barton’s arrows whizzing past his torso as he picks up speed and leaps, with dancer-like grace, off the edge.

Tony feels his soul leave his body with a sharp jolt, and he watches the proceedings in slow motion as Peter hangs for a moment in mid-air. His body is arced in a perfect jeté, right arm extended, with his inner wrist pushed forward. 

Then he drops from the air above the balcony like a pile of stones. Tony lets out a strangled cry and stumbles out of bed, sheet tangled around his body. He rushes to the balcony, expecting to see a red splatter on the pavement when he bends over the railing.

There’s nothing there. _There’s nothing there._ Tourists mill along the promenade below unbothered, and Tony releases all the air in his lungs in a rush.

But to his right, Peter is crouching on the railing of the balcony a few rooms over. He looks over his shoulder to give Tony a sad smile and a little wave, and then he’s flinging out an arm again, swinging to the next building over on a gossamer web. 

It’s a matter of moments before he’s completely out of sight.

“Shit,” Coulson curses, and bangs a fist against the metal railing. “Hawkeye …”

“Yes, sir,” the other man says. “Calling in the widow.”

Tony lets them go about their business around him, searching his room for any indication of where the reactor might be. But all he can do is look out on the rooftops of the city, trying vainly to trace Peter’s path. The betrayal in the kid’s eyes is branded on his amygdala. Tony is an idiot. Such an _idiot_. 

He knew Peter was the type who spooked easy, that the thing between them was still fragile. He should have made it clear from the beginning that he wasn’t accusing, that he would protect him no matter what.

Coulson and Barton are gone by the time he’s able to drag his eyes away from the rooftops. When he goes inside, his room is ransacked – soiled sheets and clothing strewn over the floor, the contents of his suitcase upended in a corner, all the drawers pulled open. 

But a glance at the bar cart confirms that they left the bottles untouched. Tony pours himself three fingers and knocks it back in a long swallow, savoring the burn all the way down his throat. When it all goes to shit, at least there’s whiskey. 

*

A tinkle of ice against glass forces Peter to raise his head from where it is currently buried in his hands to see the professor dangling a sweating glass in front of his face. He takes the vodka tonic gratefully and sips. It’s his second. _Third?_ Not important. What’s important is that Wanda only keeps the good vodka on hand, which is a very admirable attribute in a friend.

“Thank you,” Peter rasps at the man.

He’s gotten used to him, now. Or the vodka is really kicking in. One or the other. But he’d been shocked when he first met him a couple hours ago. After this morning’s disaster he’d gone straight to Wanda, unable to think of what else to do with himself.

She, of course, had given him a tongue-lashing for daring to show up at her place of business _while on the run from the SSR._ But she’d taken pity on him, in the end. 

“I’ve got a safehouse you can use for a few days,” she’d sighed. “Scrape yourself together. Let’s go.”

That’s how he’d ended up in the tiny Le Suquet apartment, greeted by a tall man in tweed with receding blonde hair and gigantic tortoise-shell glasses.

“Ah, you must be Mr. Parker,” he’d said as soon as Peter had walked in the door. “I’m delighted to meet you. Wanda’s told me so much about you.”

Peter’s brain still wasn’t operating at 100 percent. He’d stared at the man, then looked down at himself – the rumpled clothes several sizes too big for him, his bare feet, the redness that’s forming at his wrists because he hasn’t used web shooters in so long that his protective calluses are gone.

“I don’t know you,” he’d said, astutely. “How do you know me? Is it because I look like I’ve crawled out of a dumpster?”

The man had tilted his head to look at Peter more closely, then gave him a soft, apologetic smile. 

“Well … Yes, actually.”

His accent was plummy English. Eton then Cambridge, if Peter had to take a guess at his upbringing.

“What, no hello for me?” Wanda had called from the entryway, where she was slipping out of her heels.

The man’s face had lit up with a gigantic grin.

“Hello, darling,” he’d said, then gone over to pull her into a kiss.

He was so tall that Wanda had to stretch up on her tiptoes to oblige him. Her hand lingered on his jaw even after she pulled away, and her expression was filled with fondness. Peter’s stomach had lurched at the sight of them. Easy affection. Less than two hours ago, he’d had that too. The pang of jealousy was unfair, but present nonetheless. 

So the safehouse, as it turned out, was just Wanda’s home. Which she let hardly anyone know about because she was a paranoid spy. And the man was Professor Victor Shade – Vis, Wanda called him – a mathematician at a university in Nice. And also Wanda’s live-in boyfriend, apparently.

“I tried to lure him over to the Soviet rocket program right after the war,” she tells Peter as they enter the main room of the apartment. 

It’s a pleasant space, at the very top of the building with a line of skylights to let in plenty of sun. It’s got the rundown, bohemian look of a lot of places in the old quarter, and the overwhelming impression that Peter gets from it is _green._ There are houseplants everywhere – ferns hanging in baskets from the ceiling, vines creeping their way slowly up walls, even a scraggly Bonsai perched in the middle of the coffee table.

“What?” Wanda had said, plucking at the Bonsai to remove a dead leaf or two. “It keeps me calm. Anyway, it didn’t work. Vis was far too loyal to betray his country. More’s the pity.”

“Didn’t stop me from following her to France, though,” the professor had added. “I’m afraid I was rather hopeless. Well, am.”

Wanda had given him a soft look that frankly boggled Peter’s mind. 

“Shut your mouth before you let in flies,” Wand told him.

The professor is keeping himself busy being unerringly polite, now. He keeps coming ‘round to offer Peter drinks, which he accepts, and snacks, which he waves away as his stomach protests even the idea. 

Peter has set up residency on their couch, had just collapsed on the spot and been disinclined to move ever since. Every now and then he hides his nose in the sleeve of his shirt. _Tony’s shirt,_ which he’d taken by accident this morning. It still smells of him, bergamot and leather, and Peter hates how even a whiff makes his stomach plummet.

He feels wrung out and weak. The thing is, he knows better. He’s always known better than to trust that quickly. But it had felt so different with Tony. It had been a punch directly to the diaphragm when he’d looked at Tony expecting nothing but that same, steady faith that he always exuded around Peter and instead saw … Doubt.

And if even Tony could doubt him, what must the others be thinking? Peter had seen it all laid out before him. He’d be taken to some SSR black site, questioned and tortured by men seeking weapons he couldn’t give to them. There was an arrow aimed at his heart, and no back-up. Peter had had no choice but to run.  

“Tell it to me again,” Wanda says on a sigh.

She’s curled up in an armchair across from Peter, looking uncharacteristically soft in an oversized flannel shirt, her hair up in a ponytail. But there’s still a sharpness in her eyes as she looks at him.

“He said they needed to get someone he called ‘Red’ on it to figure things out. Whatever that means.”

“Fuck,” Wanda says.  

“You know what that means?” Peter asks. “Well, don’t keep secrets, Wands.”

“You can’t put this together?” Wanda scoffs. “You really are off your game.” 

Peter levels a look at her, patience not up to these kinds of games today. 

“You already met Hawkeye,” Wanda says, speaking slowly as though to a small child. “What notorious red-haired spy is known to work closely with him?”

“Shit,” Peter says, feeling his empty stomach roil. “The Black Widow.” 

“The fucking Black Widow,” Wanda confirms. 

Peter knocks his drink back, but waves the professor away when he offers another.

“I think I’d better switch to coffee, if you don’t mind,” he says, wearily.

“Certainly, Mr. Parker,” the professor says. “May I suggest some food as well? I’ve got some chicken paprikash on the stove.”

Peter’s about to agree when he sees Wanda gesturing emphatically with her eyebrows. When he looks over to her, she gives a subtle shake of her head.

“J-just coffee, I think,” he says.

“He tries, bless him, but English cooking really is hopeless,” Wanda says once he’s shuffled back to the kitchen to start the coffee. “Someone should tell them that not everything needs to be boiled until it turns grey.” 

Peter groans.

“I swear I’ll get out of here as soon as I sober up a little,” he says.

If the Widow is after him, he can’t risk exposing Wanda’s home. She’s taken enough risks for him, and he can’t keep bringing trouble to her door.

“Just breathe,” she tells him. “We’re going to figure this out. I promise.”

“I don’t even know where to start,” Peter admits.

Try as he might, he can’t seem to come up with a solution that doesn’t end in disaster. 

He’s accepting a steaming coffee cup from the professor when he first notices it – the faint creak on the stairs coming closer and closer to Wanda’s door. Peter’s eyes flick automatically to Wanda, who’s back has gone ramrod straight. She reaches down beneath the coffee table to pull out a pistol. Peter reaches for the lamp on a table next to the couch to use as a blunt instrument if needed.

There’s a rattle from the doorknob, and then the professor is the one going to the door, looking through the peephole, and then throwing it open wide with a sigh. 

“Mr. Beck,” he says. “Welcome. I pray you’ll ignore the weaponry.” 

The tension sinks out of Wanda’s spine and she lowers the gun.

“What in the hell, Q?” 

In the entryway, Q is pulling off the hat he has pulled low over his eyes, clearly a hastily-assembled disguise.

“I came as soon as I could,” he says. “There’s a manhunt happening up and down the coast road. Checkpoints and everything. What happened?”

Peter carefully puts the lamp down, then throws his hands up and starts pacing, leaving Wanda to explain. She’ll do a better job of it anyway.

“There was another theft,” she says. “The Americans were the target this time. And apparently they all know who Peter is. Because _somebody_ couldn’t keep his hands to himself.”

“They knew about me before that,” Peter protests, weakly.

“Not as compelling an argument as you’d think,” she spits back. “So now we’re at am impasse. It’s just a matter of time before they track him. Even here." 

“Maybe I should just turn myself in,” Peter grumbles. “At least that way I’ll keep you out of it, Wands.”

“Don’t be an idiot,” Wanda snaps. “I haven’t gone through all this just to have you give up. They’ll lock you up until you can answer their questions, which you can’t do. Do I need to spell it out any clearer?”

“I’m open to suggestions, Wands, but I’m not seeing a lot of alternatives to that scenario.”

Wanda has her mouth open to argue, but is interrupted by Q clearing his throat.

“I, uh, think I might actually be able to help here,” he says.

“Help?” Peter says, incredulous. “Really?”

“I wasn’t kidding when I said I’d be here for you, Peter,” Q insists. “Seems to me like your thief is under scrutiny now. If he wants to make another move, he’ll have to do it fast. That probably means he’ll hit the British next. And I happen to have an in with the security detail at the villa where they’re staying.” 

“Figures the British aristos wouldn’t stand for staying at a hotel like everyone else,” Wanda mutters. 

“What was that, my darling?” the professor asks.

“Nothing my sweet,” Wanda responds with a sugary smile.

“I can get you in tonight,” Q continues, ignoring the couple. “There’s still a chance to catch them in the act, put all this behind us.” 

Peter approaches him slowly, warily. He’s literally standing there with hat in hand, looking at Peter with sorrowful green eyes.

“Why?” Peter asks. “Why do you even care, Q? Yesterday you were still convinced that I was the thief.”

“That part never mattered to me, Pete,” he says. “I care about you. I know I messed things up between us before with my own ego, but it never changed how I felt. Let me try and redeem myself a little now. Let me help.”

There’s a lump in Peter’s throat. He’s so tired, he feels a hangover building behind his eyes prematurely, and he just really, really misses being called Pete in that fond, familiar way. So instead of questioning or challenging, he lowers his eyes, nods, and says “Thank you, Q.”

He allows the warm pressure of a hand at his wrist, a smooth palm sliding over his own. When Q laces his fingers through Peter’s, he squeezes back gratefully.

“Alright then, boys,” Wanda says, coming up beside them. “What’s the plan?” 

*

That evening finds Peter in the upper branches of an acacia tree on the property of the villa the English contingent is renting. It’s up near the Cap, with a wide green lawn that ends in a shocking and sudden drop as the rocky cliff face slides into the sea. 

He’s got the scope of an old Argus camera, borrowed from the professor, pointed at the roofline of the villa, waiting for any sign of their thief. The camera flash will serve as a signal to Wanda and Q, waiting in cars on either side of the property, that their quarry has been spotted. Hopefully, surrounding him on three sides will be enough. Wanda will be sending up a signal to the professor – set up at a nearby café – to call the police in as well. But it’s doubtful they’ll be much use if he fails to catch his man.

It’s not the most threadbare job that Peter has ever attempted, but it’s awfully fucking close. Maybe that job in Mont Blanc where it was just him, Wade and a local barman who fancied himself a resistance fighter against a German unit. But that hadn’t ended particularly well for anyone.

It’s a longshot their thief even decides to come tonight, Peter knows. He could decide things are too hot to make a move, what with the manhunt for Peter escalating. Or he could just decide the British don’t have anything worth stealing. But Peter’s pretty sure he won’t be able to hang around Cannes for another day and not get caught. His choices will soon be just allowing himself to be caught or fleeing the country. This is a literal hail Mary play.

Which is why he doubts his eyes the first time he sees the figure creeping along the line of the red-tiled roof. It can’t possibly be, he thinks. It’s a trick of moonlight and shadow. But the longer he stares, the clearer it becomes. That’s a man dressed all in black, climbing cautiously between the eaves. Peter clicks the camera shutter a couple of times.

“Gotcha,” he mutters to himself. 

He waits to use his flash until he sees the figure reach a drainpipe at the corner of the villa and slide down it swiftly like it’s a fireman’s pole. By then he’s screwed the flashbulb in and lets it off with a loud pop and a bright flash.

Peter prays that Wanda and Q could see it from their positions, because their cat burglar certainly has. He’s off and running as soon as the flash goes off. But he doesn’t head toward the road like Peter expects. Instead, he shoots into a copse of trees, headed in the direction of the cliffs.

It doesn’t make any sense. Peter knows this, but doesn’t have any time to examine it as he leaps down from his tree, swinging effortlessly from a high branch down to the ground, and takes off at a run in the same direction as the shadowy figure. 

He reaches the cliffs first, slowing to a stop and breathing harshly when he realizes no one’s there. Peter’s just about to double back to see if Wanda or Q were able to catch up with the man, when a figure emerges from the tree line.

The breath catches in Peter’s throat. It’s a familiar gait, one Peter will never forget. He’s always felt a little responsible.

The man drags a leg behind him as he walks – spry for his condition – directly toward Peter. 

“I shoulda known it was you behind all this,” Adrian says when he gets close enough for Peter to see his face. “What, you gonna drag us all down with you into he muck? You’re a piece of work, Spider boy.”

Peter’s brain is rolling and fumbling with the information before him. It’s impossible. _Physically impossible._

“You gotta tell me what’s going on, old man,” he says, desperately. “I don’t understand.”

“Loyalty?” Adrian asks, hobbling right up to Peter and giving his shoulders a shove. Whatever ails him, he’s still got strength. Peter stumbles back a few feet. “No, you never did fucking understand that, did you? We were a family. There was blood between us.”

“There still is!” Peter cries out, hoarsely. “Adrian, you gotta go. A friend of mine should be calling in the gendarmerie. They’re gonna find you.”

Adrian just laughs at him, a cold sound that settles uncomfortably in Peter’s stomach. His gut grumbles even further when he hears the telltale sounds of underbrush being trampled by a rush of feet. It has to be the police, even though it’s unthinkable that they arrived that quickly. The professor should have just barely had time to call them by now. Something is wrong here. Something is off.

“Give it to me,” Peter says, holding out a hand. “Whatever you took, give it to me. Q should have a car running on the far side of the villa. He’ll get you out. But you have to go now.”

“Fuck you,” Adrian spits at him. 

It’s then Peter notices the red dot hovering on Adrian’s shoulder. _Not just the gendarmerie, then,_ he thinks with a cold trickle of realization _. The SSR._

He lets out a wordless cry of alarm before attempting to manhandle Adrian away from the beam. But the words aren’t coming, and Adrian can’t understand what he’s doing, must think it’s an attack.

He struggles against Peter’s grapple, pushing back with his whole weight. Peter has his back to the cliffs. They’re so close to the edge he can feel the spray on the back of his neck, splashing up from below. Peter pushes back, trying to spin them around to present his own back to the sniper. But Adrian is like boulder in the middle of a current. He won’t be moved. 

“Let me go, you little shit,” he grunts at Peter. 

Peter has just enough time to respond with “Please …”

What was he going to say? Please stop? Please get down? Please forgive me?

Whatever it was, it’s cut off by the muffled rapport of a gun, and Adrian is slumping forward into Peter’s arms. Peter grips at him, feeling a sticky wetness seeping through his fingers as they flex into Adrian’s back.

The old man cries out at the touch, jerking away from Peter, then slumping forward. It all happens too quickly. One minute he’s there, and the next Peter’s gripping empty air. He watches in horror as Adrian tumbles over the edge of the cliff.

As though on a delay, Peter shoots a web out, but only hits open air. He falls to his knees, gulping in deep breaths as he peers over into the sea below. He’s just barely aware of someone yelling at him in French, of rough hands jerking his arms behind his back and clasping handcuffs on his wrists. 

All of his attention is focused below, below, where he can just make out Adrian collapsed onto the white rocks, waves lapping at his body and the red blood from his wound disappearing into the inky blue swells of the sea.

*

The casino teems with people tonight, and when Tony closes his eyes his mind – floaty from an overabundance of whiskey – feels like it’s being engulfed entirely by the babble of them. It’s like sinking down into a warm bath, to lose himself like this. It’s rare he’s able to persuade his brain to shut off even momentarily. 

Thoughtlessly, he pushes a pile of chips onto the black diamond of the green baize roulette table. Tony’s never been much on roulette, but they’d kicked him off the baccarat tables a couple of hours ago because he was counting cards. So he’s here slumming it with the games of actual chance. 

The golden light from chandeliers, dripping with crystals, sparkles off the shimmering jewel-toned dresses of the women in the crowd. The room gives the hall of mirrors in Versailles a run for its money. Reflective glass stands in for windows, which might give gamblers a hint of how long they’ve actually been at the tables. It’s so bright that Tony’s slipped on his sunglasses to avoid a headache. The hangover hasn’t hit him yet, but he’s pretty sure that’s only because he hasn’t stopped drinking since Peter’s abrupt exit from his room this morning. Which he decidedly _isn’t thinking about._

He vaguely registers the croupier calling out a hit for red, and watches his chips being pulled away.

A bottle blonde in an emerald dress displaying ample décolletage leans over against Tony’s shoulder and bats long fake eyelashes at him.

“Tough luck, honey,” she says. “Want me to kiss your chips for good luck?”

Tony knows what she’s angling at kissing, and he’s definitely not interested. But there’s something about her voice.

“Saaay,” he says, giving her a lopsided smile and slurring his words just a little. “Are you, by any chance, from Queens?” 

The smile on her red-lacquered lips falls slightly.

“Shit,” she says. “Flushing. Is it that obvious? I was trying to blend.”

“The accent is rather distinctive,” Tony says. He leans against the table on his elbows and slides his sunglasses down so he can look her in the eye. “I fucking hate Queens.”

“You and me both, honey,” the woman responds with a warm hand on his forearm. “I ain’t never going back.”

“Good choice,” Tony commends.

She’s saying something about chips again that Tony’s mind automatically twists into an innuendo, but he’s only got a fraction of his attention on her. The rest of it has gone to the knock-out redhead who’s just walked through the ivory filigreed arch that marks the entrance to the casino. 

She’s dressed in a skintight black sheath dress, and she shoots him a menacing look before walking over to the long cherry wood bar.

“Sorry, sweetheart,” Tony says, pocketing his scant remaining chips and tipping back his drink. “Duty calls.”

“Hey,” she calls after him as he makes a beeline for the bar. “You never said you was married.”

“Natasha,” Tony greets the redhead, drumming on the bar in order to more quickly summon the bartender for a refill. “What brings you to my den of iniquity?” 

The Black Widow takes a sip of her martini and narrows her eyes at him.

“Coulson sent me to make sure you don’t make a scene,” she says.

“But darling, that’s what I do best.”

“I need to update you on the situation, Stark.”

She waves the bartender away with a “He’s fine, thanks” over Tony’s protests.

“You might want to consider sobering up.”

Tony shakes his head.

“Nah, sounds horrible. Look, just say what you need to say, Red.”

“Suit yourself,” she says, then lowers her voice, using the rim of her glass to obscure her lips in case anyone is watching. “I’m here to tell you that the Spider has just been taken into custody by the Cannes Gendarmerie. He’s being transported now to the central police station.” 

Tony’s knuckles go white from where he’s clutching the bar. 

“Fuck,” he breathes out. “Why was he even still in the city?”

“Well, he was captured at the villa where the British contingent for the conference is staying, so you can probably draw some conclusions from that. Stark, I need you to calm down.”

Tony’s heart is thundering in his ears. He is suddenly achingly sober. There’s something wrong here. Something terribly wrong. And this time he has to make sure it’s put right.

As casually as he possibly can, he steps back from the bar and tips an imaginary hat in Natasha’s direction.

“Seems like that’s my cue, Red. I gotta go.”

“Wait.”

Natasha stops him with grip on his elbow that’s surprisingly strong for her small frame.

“You really don’t want to try to stop me, Red,” Tony warns through clenched teeth. “I will make just the kind of scene that the agent wants to avoid.”

“I’m not trying to stop you,” Natasha says with a whisper of a smile on her face. “I’m coming with you. My car’s already in front of the casino. It’ll be faster than whatever you’ve got planned.”

“Fine,” Tony agrees.

He didn’t have a plan. He doesn’t. But every instinct he has is pulling him in Peter’s direction, so he’ll take whatever route gets him there the quickest. He grabs hold of Natasha’s hand, not bothering to give her time to properly set down her drink. 

“Come on,” he says. “Now.” 

In a matter of moments, the only indication they were even there is a tinkle of breaking crystal and a waft of spilled gin and vermouth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the unplanned month-long hiatus, ya'll. But to make up for it, I present you with actual plot development! Kind of amazing, I know. 
> 
> Also, if you want to hear some of the music that has helped to inspire this story, I've put together a playlist here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6pzv17v6JXuohWS2qJB8zk?si=riDwNHZ4Qz27oUDR6_XKcA
> 
> Thanks to everyone who has left comments and kudos for this story. You are all very lovely. I hope you enjoy!


	7. Chapter 7

The steady hiss and beep of medical equipment turns oddly meditative after the first few hours, Peter finds. Unfortunately, the way the old man looks in his hospital bed eliminates any soothing effect the noises might have.

He looks smaller than Peter has ever dreamed he could – skin thin and bruised, bones fragile and broken. He’s got a tube down his throat, a dozen wires hooked into his grayish skin, and thick bandages covering the top of his head. He looked better when they were dragging him on a stretcher through a muddy French battlefield with a jagged piece of shrapnel buried three inches into the meat of his leg.

Even then, he was gripping the glowing stub of a cigar between his teeth and ordering the lot of them about like he wasn’t on the very doorstep of death.

This time, Adrian Toomes really should be dead. He was shot and then fell from a cliff onto jagged rocks. But somehow this stubborn bastard is still clinging to life. It’s a miracle, or some deal he made with the devil. Peter doesn’t care which. He focuses on watching the tube force his chest up and down. There’s a little hitch in the machine every four or five cycles, a delay in the mechanical _shush_ of air, that makes Peter’s heart jump every time it occurs.  

“Don’t die on me old man,” he whispers, reaching out to take a cold, limp hand in his own. “Don’t you dare.”

He can’t help but feel guilty. He should have realized right away that Adrian couldn’t be the thief. His injury most definitely precludes him from running about on rooftops. But he’d been so shocked to see him there, coming out of the woods like that. He hadn’t known what to think, and so he’d accused.

The mystery of why he was there at all is another thing entirely. Peter rolls it around in his mind, and there’s something there. A thread poking out that he’s certain, when pulled, will make the whole thing unravel for him. He’s just not sure if he can unpick it all before the culprit drops their end and makes a run for it. Depends on how cocky they are.

_Be cocky,_ Peter thinks, as the machine hitches again. _Be a goddamn, big-headed asshole._ He wants to make whoever’s responsible here pay.

He’s jolted out of his murderous reverie when the door of the hospital room creaks open. He’s expecting a nurse, but Q walks in instead, shaking the collar of his damp green raincoat out before approaching.

“Dammit, old man,” he huffs.

“Doc says the head trauma from falling caused the worst of the damage,” Peter tells him as he shuffles to the other side of the bed and pulls up a chair. “The bullet went through and through, no vital organs, but the head wound …. If he regains consciousness, it’ll be a while.”

Slowly, Q takes Adrian’s other hand in his own, careful of the wires, and then he raises his head. When their eyes meet, Q’s flash green and full of rage.

“You’ve got a lot of nerve sticking around,” he says, words coming out in a growl. “But that’s who you’ve always been, isn’t it, Peter? The spider. Sitting in your corner. Watching. Waiting for the flies to get caught in your web.”

“What are you …”

“Peter we both know the old man wasn’t climbing roofs and playing the cat burglar. But he’s always had a soft spot for you.”

Peter snorts at that.

“Could’ve fooled me,” he says.

Adrian hates him. He’s refused to see him these last five years. Peter’s been rebuked at every attempt to make amends.

“He didn’t end you after the shit you pulled in ‘45,” Q spits back. “Which is more than he would’ve done for any of the rest of us. And now he’s paying the price.”

“If you want to say something Quentin, I don’t need the theatrics. You can just say it.”

“I think coincidences are bullshit,” Quentin says, leaning over Adrian’s comatose figure to invade Peter’s space. “So whether you actually shoved him off that cliff, or if you just didn’t care enough to save him, he’s in this bed because of you, Peter Parker. So how dare you sit here holding his hand like you care? I don’t know how you live with yourself.”

The words are shockingly similar to the internal monologue Peter’s been fighting with all day. The _your fault, your fault, your fault_ sing-songing through his brain.

“I –“ Peter tries to muster words of protest. “I didn’t …”

“You did, Peter,” Quentin says, voice soft and caressing now. “You did this. Look at him.”

Peter does. That’s the man who first told him he could be of any use at all in the army. One of the few who would have gladly stepped in front of a bullet for Peter. The breathing machine hisses, and Quentin speaks hypnotically.

“If he doesn’t die, he’ll go to prison,” Q says. “And how long do you think he’ll last there, Peter? An injured old man? You’ve got blood on your hands.”

Peter looks down at his hands as though they might actually still be red and sticky. He stands, abruptly, ignoring the tremors running through his body. He fumbles with his hat, and doesn’t bother with proper goodbyes.

Peter slams out of the room. He wants to run. He wants to swing. Anything to burn off some of the heavy, inky thing settling in his chest.

It feels like running into a brick wall when he finds none other than Hawkeye sitting on a metal chair out in the hallway, watching the door.

“You …” Peter breathes out, the venom in his voice unmistakable.

Barton holds both hands up to him, a gentling gesture that Peter isn’t in the mood for at all.

“How dare you?” Peter spits. He starts out speaking in a whisper, but struggles to keep his voice under control. “How fucking dare you? He’s in a coma. He doesn’t need a guard.”

Barton’s eyes go wider and wider as Peter lashes out at him.

“Listen, Spiderling, all I’m doing is following orders.”

“That’s what you all do, isn’t it?” Peter says, stepping closer. “You follow orders, who cares what they are, or who you hurt along the way? There are always fucking orders.”

“I was told,” Barton says, firming his jaw. “To make sure Mr. Toomes’ recovery remains uninterrupted. And could you keep it down? I’ve already got a headache from the interference.”

For a long moment Peter’s brain can’t process what Barton’s saying. Then he notices the way the man is tugging on his left ear, flicking his eyes over Peter’s shoulder, and his head turns. Interference. Interference. _Oh._

It’s difficult to notice, the way in blends in almost perfectly with the beige of the hallway baseboard, but there’s a little wire running under the door into Adrian’s room. It isn’t like it takes much, but the fires of Peter’s rage are stoked higher.

“Excuse me,” he barks towards Barton, and the man gives him an irritated wave as he stalks off down the hall.

Now that he’s seen it, Peter can easily follow the wire. Whoever is responsible didn’t have much time to prepare. He turns a few corners, makes his way down a stairwell. In the hospital basement, he finds a room guarded by two plainclothes DST agents.

With the courage of a man who has already been arrested in the last 24 hours, Peter marches up to them and crosses his arms.

“Où est le patron?” he demands. “Je veux lui parler.”

They stumble over their words at the direct confrontation, and one of them makes the mistake of reaching for his gun. It takes a handful of seconds for Peter to remove the guns from both of their holsters and stick the men to the walls.

“Amateurs,” he mutters under his breath as he slams the door open.

Peter figures he’ll have several more layers of security to go through, but once through the door all he finds is a smoky, concrete room with a folding table, a large two-reel audio recorder, and a man sitting and listening.

When Peter barges in, the man doesn’t even startle. He calmly removes the headphones from his head, taps the ash off the end of his cigarette, and spears Peter with one all-knowing eye. The other is hidden behind an eyepatch.

“L’Homme Araignée,” he greets. “Nice to finally meet you.”

Peter waves off the nom de plume. He knows the man by sight, even if they haven’t been introduced formally. Berbers aren’t exactly an oddity in France, especially not in regions this close to Morocco. But even the French have their prejudices, though they talk big about liberty, equality and fraternity. When a black man becomes the head of one of Europe’s biggest espionage agencies, the word spreads.

“Nicholas Fureur,” he introduces himself with a tip of his head, hand to his chest. “Won’t you sit down.”

“I know who you are,” Peter says.

He doesn’t sit. The anger still burns bright in his chest.

“Good,” Fureur says. “Then we can dispense with the pleasantries.”

When he speaks English, it’s with barely a whisper of an accent. Peter suspects that, if he had had a need to be out in the field in the last decade, it would be flawless. The slip is just a signal that he’s above that now. A grandmaster and no longer a pawn.

Pleasantries, though, Peter is more than happy to do away with.

“What’s the purpose, Director Fureur, in surveilling an innocent man?” he demands. “An innocent man in a coma no less?”

“Ah, but he’s not innocent, is he?” Fureur counters. “He was found with British property in his pocket. After robbing a member of the NATO delegation in the middle of the night.”

“A bauble,” Peter argues.

“A key to a safety deposit box.”

“That he would never be allowed access to!”

Peter throws his hands up into the air in frustration.

“It’s nothing an actual thief would be after, certainly not the one you’re trying to find. Adrian Toomes didn’t steal your tesseract plans.”

“Why do you fight it so?” Fureur asks, curiously. “His guilt means you’re a free man. No longer under suspicion. You can return to your life. A tutor in Biot, aren’t you? Don’t you miss that quiet life, Monsieur Parker?”

“I fight it because it’s a lie,” Peter says. “It’s a distraction. A red herring. Adrian Toomes was injured in the war, Director. He’s not a wall-scaling thief. He’s not physically capable. Surely you understand that. So what game are you playing?”

Fureur gives a Gallic shrug, and gestures again to the seat across the table. This time, Peter takes it, looking the man full in his good eye as he leans forward.

“I’m a fan of your work, L’Homme Araignée,” he says. “I followed your exploits in the war, and when you settled in France I thought ‘What a marvelous turn of fate. A spider on my doorstep.’”

Peter feels it clicking into place. The reason the director of the DST is in a hospital basement in Cannes, running surveillance a grunt could do. The reason Adrian was settled on so easily as culprit, and Peter released from custody. Absolved. They want him for an asset. This is blackmail.

“Maybe you thought you wanted a quiet life at first, and I left you to it,” Fureur says. “But clearly things have changed. Please understand, Monsieur Parker, that if you want to keep your freedom, you’ll do so under my command.”

Peter’s hands curl around the edge of the folding table, gripping until his knuckles turn white.

“And what would your commands involve, director?”

“I like secrets,” Fureur says, a bright smile spreading across his face. “I have a feeling you’re going to find me a lot of secrets.”

“And if I don’t?” Peter knows the answer before he asks, but sometimes it’s good to get these things out in the open. Know for sure the hand you’re playing with.

“If you don’t,” the director replies. “Then I suspect I’ll have to take a closer look at the activities of the other members of your little spy ring. So convenient of them all to work together, isn’t it? Makes everything neat and tidy. I like that. A place for everything …”

“And everything in its place,” Peter finishes, unable to keep the growl out of his voice.

But it doesn’t matter how defiant he makes himself sound. He’s caught. Well and truly this time, and he walked right into the trap.

He trades a few more loaded barbs with Fureur, but there’s not really much more to cover. The man says he’ll be in touch, and Peter doesn’t doubt it. He doesn’t even ask for any assurances that Peter will comply. He already knows that he will.

Peter stumbles out of the hospital in a daze. He hasn’t slept – not really – since the night he spent in Tony’s arms, and even that rest was interrupted by a nightmare. He shies away from the memory, though. It hurts to mentally poke at it, like a bruise.

It’s not until he’s on the curb, feeling the heavy drops of rain land on his bare head, that he notices the weather. The sky above him is a gray wall of clouds, and the rain is coming down in a slow, steady drizzle. Peter’s hat is still clutched in his hands, and maybe he should put it on, but a part of him thinks, _what’s the point?_ When it rains, it pours. He’s going to get wet either way.

Before his hair can get too sodden, however, a black umbrella appears above his head. Peter follows the cane of the umbrella down to an elegant hand with perfectly manicured red nails. There’s a woman beside him, dressed in a sharply-tailored blue skirt and jacket, bright red curls falling softly onto her shoulders.

Her face is pale and stoic, and a jolt runs through Peter’s body as he recognizes her as the same woman he saw when he was keeping watch over Tony’s hotel room. The Black Widow. Is she here to kill him, Peter wonders? There are at least a dozen ways she could do it without causing much fuss. Half of them would be excruciatingly painful.

“Don’t run away, Spiderling,” she says in a husky voice he isn’t expecting from her delicate frame. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

“No?” Peter asks, forcibly relaxing all the muscles in his body that unconsciously tensed the moment he recognized her. “You’ll forgive me, Ma’am, if I don’t quite trust your word on that. You’ve got a reputation.”

She doesn’t smile, but something lights around her eyes, and she quirks an eyebrow at him.

“It’s impolite to reference a lady’s reputation,” she says, mildly.

“My apologies,” Peter offers. “May I ask why you are here?”

“By request of a mutual friend,” she says, wrapping her free hand around his elbow.

She leads him away from the main entrance of the hospital, entering the flow of pedestrian traffic. They’re just one black umbrella in a sea of the same making their way down the street.

“I want to assure you that you don’t have to worry about the safety of your friend,” she says, voice low and face peaceful. They might be talking about tennis, or art, or the weather. “We have eyes on him, and we’ll keep it that way.”

“I don’t think we have to worry about anyone hurting him,” Peter admits. “He’s collateral now.”

“You met Director Fureur then,” she says. “We’re working on that.”

He nods, and continues to follow the guiding nudges she gives him. Probably he’s walking into cage is as good as another. 

They finally stop in front of a working-class café off a side street, and Peter thinks maybe he’ll get a coffee out of this at least. But instead, the Widow nods in the direction of the street.

There’s a car idling beside them, an olive green Peugeot sedan, hulking and beetle-like.

“Get in the car, please, Spiderling,” the Widow says.

Peter wonders, briefly, if this is a kidnapping.

“Is this a kidnapping?” he asks idly. Not that it really matters. If it is, he supposes he’ll deal with that too. What’s one more thing?

“It’s an intervention,” she replies with a huff. “If I have to listen to him whine any longer, I’m going to murder him. You need to intervene.”

Peter’s eyes go wide as her meaning sinks in, and he tries to turn away. He’s not above running, and if he can get a good enough head start, he can swing. The Widow’s blood-red nails dig harshly into his forearm, making him pause.

“Get. In. The car.”

She speaks through gritted teeth and manhandles him toward the vehicle, opening the door with a click, and pushing his head down so he won’t hit it as she shoves him unceremoniously inside.

Peter sprawls across the leather seat as the door is slammed in his face. Through the glass of the window, the Black Widow returns his scowl and mouths “fix it,” at him before giving her umbrella a little shake and walking away.

Peter doesn’t turn around immediately. He fogs the passenger-side window with his breath and waits. He can feel Tony’s eyes on him, and the scrutiny makes the muscles of his back tense. He’s so exhausted, and he doesn’t know what to do with this right now, so he just stays where he is, staring out the window while the car pulls away from the curb and makes its way through a warren of side streets.

They stop in a cobbled alley so tiny that Peter’s initially concerned the walls of the buildings on either side will scrape up the car doors. But they fit, and Tony shifts the car into park, leaving the engine to idle.

They sit in heavy silence, and Peter watches a raindrop snake its way down the window.

“I’m sorry about the super-spy antics, but I figured if I just showed up, you’d go running,” Tony says, breaking the quiet. “I swear I’m usually better at not kidnapping people, but you had me real worried, Pete, and I just …”

Peter clenches his jaw a little tighter with every word out of Tony’s mouth. He’s not even sure why the man bothered with all this rigmarole. He doesn’t trust Peter, never has really, so why the theatrics? There’s no reason Tony should trust him, anyway. Even with the best of intentions, all Peter can manage to do is leave a trail of destruction in his wake. It’s that inevitable Parker luck.

He’s jolted out of his sulk when Tony slams his hand down on the steering wheel with a slap.

“Jesus, kid, would you at least look at me?” he grits out, and the pain in his voice forcefully draws Peter’s gaze.

Tony’s dressed more somberly than Peter’s ever seen him, in a slate gray suit and black trilby. The brim throws a shadow over his face, but when he removes it, tossing it into the back seat of the car, the dark circles under his eyes are revealed.

He brings a hand up to scrape at a stubbly jaw, trembling almost imperceptibly.

“I’m sorry,” Tony rasps. “Pete, I’m so sorry. It was a moment of doubt, and it was so stupid. I would never let them touch you. I swear it.”

For a long moment Peter just drinks him in. He’s not sure how it’s possible that he missed Tony’s face after so short a time, but he did. Missed looking at him, and feeling the warm blanket of comfort that his presence can bring even in the worst circumstances.

He doesn’t trust what the other man is saying. When push comes to shove, Tony will turn away from him. But he’s so, so tired. Tired, and trapped, and not up to a fight.

“It doesn’t matter,” he says. “I always knew our allegiances were different. And now it really, really doesn’t matter.”

*

Peter looks like he’s been dragged through one of the nastier circles of hell when he finally does turn so Tony can look at him properly. His eyes are red-rimmed and when he tilts them up to meet Tony’s, they’re filled with a glassy, hunted expression.

Maybe it was a mistake to send Natasha after him, but he really wasn’t sure if the kid would talk to him willingly. Tony couldn’t let that stand. Not when it seems like things are finally coming out right.

He and Red had rushed to the police station last night – well, this morning – only to find that Tony wasn’t required to push his weight around at all. Peter had already been released. He was no longer a suspect in the thefts.

But he was gone, off to the hospital, before Tony could make contact. He’d spent the intervening hours waiting in the car for Peter to emerge and drinking way too much cheap coffee. He probably reeks of the stuff now, acrid and burnt, and that’s not the impression he wants to make at all.

Tony looks over at his sad-eyed boy and just wants to gather him into his arms and hold him close. But the frustration radiating off of Peter in waves is enough to keep him in check. He hasn’t earned that closeness yet.

“Of course it matters,” he says, reaching a hand out to Peter on instinct, but retracting it before he can actually touch. _Bad Tony._ “Pete don’t you see? We’re so close to having what we wanted. Your name is clear of these thefts. We can move forward, can’t we? If you can trust me again? I want to earn that.”

Peter snorts at that.

“I’m not free of anything,” he mutters. “I’m just caught in a different trap.”

“What do you …”

“The man they’re accusing now is innocent,” Peter speaks forcefully, clenching his jaw. “My old CO. He’s a good man, Tony. I can’t tell you how many times he saved my life. And now they’re accusing him and threatening the rest of my unit if I don’t …”

“What?” Tony prompts softly, mind whirring at the information Peter’s laying out.

“If I don’t work for them. The DST. The director came to deliver his threat personally.”

Peter stops to scrub anxiously at his face.

“It’s just trading one prison for another,” he says, mostly to himself. “I don’t want to be in the game anymore, Tony. I don’t want any of this. But I don’t have a choice.”

“Oh, kid …” Tony says, and his heart is filled with this impossibly big thing. He does reach out now, placing a finger under Peter’s chin and raising his head up from where it’s slumped. “We’re gonna fix this, I swear. Let me help.”

“You can’t,” Peter protests. “There’s nothing to be done.”

“There is,” Tony says. Maybe it’s because he’s an engineer. A mechanic. His instinct is always to find the rattling belt or the faulty gear. To repair instead of throwing out something perfectly good.

“How does this change the plan?” he prompts, smoothing a hand over Peter’s knee – a light, tentative gesture. “We were already planning on catching our thief in the act, yes? We know he didn’t get what he was looking for with the British, so he’ll probably try again. This weekend at the villa, most likely. If we catch him red-handed. If we make a big, public splash about it, then there’s nothing the DST can do to protest. They’ll have to go along with it. And you and your friends will be safe, at least for long enough to get the hell out of France.”

“And where will we go?” Peter says, gesturing wildly, voice rising high and panicked. “Where can we possibly go? Nowhere in Europe will be safe. The French have a stranglehold on most of Africa. The Russians might have us, but at what cost? Tony, I can’t drag an entire unit of men across the world, away from the lives they’ve managed to build, for my own benefit. Not again.”

For a beat, Tony tilts his head to the side, waits for Peter to finally come to the right conclusion. He wants to see the happiness in his face when he realizes. But Peter just crumples in on himself, brings his feet up onto the car seat and crushes himself into a corner, burying his head in his knees. Tony’s going to have to spell it out for him. Well, he’s had a long night.

“You’ll come home,” he says, gently as he can. Peter’s knee is taken now, so he slips a hand around one ankle, hoping the touch is grounding. “Back to New York. Of course you’ll all come home.”

In reaction, Tony doesn’t get the thousand-kilowatt smile he’s expecting. The light doesn’t flicker on in Peter’s face. Instead, the kid peeks up at him over his own knees, and then bursts out into bitter laughter.

“You seem to have forgotten,” he says harshly. “The part of the story where I’m a traitor to my country.”

Tony shakes his head at that. He has to make Peter _see_.

“You keep underestimating my influence here, kid. I keep telling you, I know people. I’ve got sway. When I explain to them that you didn’t do anything, it’ll make a difference. I’m not just bullshitting, I’m serious. You didn’t give the Russians anything, and soon everyone will know that.”

Ever so slowly, Peter unfolds his body, opens it up to Tony. His face, though, is scrunched together in confusion.

“What do you mean, I didn’t give the Russians anything?” he whispers. “Why would you … Of course I did. You read my file, Tony. You know this.”

As far as jokes go, it’s not particularly funny.

“Peter,” Tony says, firmly. “We had this conversation, remember? The one where you told me you never sold nuclear secrets to the Russians, and I said I believed you? Could we move past this, please?”

Tony’s never actually seen all the color drain out of someone’s face before, but he watches Peter’s face go ashen in slow motion, like he’s a bottle being tipped over and emptied.

“I didn’t sell them,” he says, voice a choked whisper. “I gave them away.”

Tony feels something heavy and hard lodge first in his throat. It’s hard to swallow around, to breathe around. He feels light-headed until the thing loosens, moves through him to settle, uncomfortably, as a stone in his gut.

“Explain it to me,” he says with a voice that feels disconnected from his body. “Like I’m an idiot.”

Peter takes in a few shaky breaths while he surveys Tony, and then seems to come to a conclusion with a nod.

“I guess I have been lying to you after all,” he says, giving a short, caustic laugh. “I just never figured you’d dismiss the one pertinent fact in my file. I thought you … Understood, at least a little, why it had to be done.”

“And why did it have to be done, exactly?” Tony bites out.

There’s rage coursing through his body. He thinks of Natasha, when she first defected. Of the way she struggled to trust anyone, and the scars he sees on her body when he outfits her with the latest tech. Those signs of abuse from a young age that she never, never talks about.

“Do you have any idea into whose hands you’ve placed the power of fucking god?”

“It didn’t matter who they were,” Peter says. “If the British, or the French or the Chinese had been in the right position, it might have been them. I don’t give a shit about the Russians.”

“So you’re saying you’re not a communist, then?”

Peter snorts at that.

“Neither are the Russians. It’s a misnomer. Also irrelevant.”

“Just an anarchist content to watch the world burn,” Tony mutters to himself.

He turns away. He can’t look at Peter right now. He stares blankly out the window into the damp, misty alley and grips the steering wheel like a lifeline.

“You don’t understand,” Peter says, quietly. “You weren’t there. You didn’t see. It was the power of god. An unholy plague. No one should have that kind of power, unchecked and unfettered. I saw it, and I knew that what we had to have was mutually assured destruction.”

“Yeah,” Tony says. “You’ve used that term with me before. Slightly different context.”

“You don’t see,” Peter says. “How could you?”

He says it like a child trying to explain the monster under the bed, small and helpless and frightened.

He’s silent for a long time, and when Tony looks over, Peter has his head between his legs, hands resting lightly on his knees but shaking. When he raises his head, there’s a line of sweat glistening across his forehead, close to the hairline. He looks like he’s about to be sick.

“It’s what my nightmares are about,” Peter says, training his gaze at the floorboards. “The SSR sent me on an information-gathering mission to Hiroshima after the bomb. They wanted to know what the situation was like on the ground. You know what I saw on the ground?  Near the epicenter? Silhouettes.”

He holds a hand out, sketching a rough figure in the air.

“That’s all that was left of some of them. Just shadows. But those were the most merciful deaths. For others it took months. Radiation turning their flesh into poison for themselves and the people they loved. I … I’ve seen war, but never anything like this. The smell. People you would hardly recognize as people.”

The exhalation that Peter lets out would be a sob except there are no accompanying tears, just a violent expulsion of air, like he wants to push something putrid out of his body.

“I went to New York, gave my report to my superiors, and then I stole all the research I could lay hands on and offered it to my Russian contact,” he says. “All I could think about was how easy it would be for them to use it again. It’s always easier with repetition. People become immune to the suffering they cause. There’s always a way to justify it. But that doesn’t make it right.

“Probably someone would have gotten there on their own, but I couldn’t take the chance. I thought if there was a standoff, then everyone would be too scared to use it again. It would be balance. Terrifying balance, but still … Maybe fear is what we deserve for our horrors.”

Peter swallows, thickly, covers his face with his hands, and something breaks in Tony’s heart at the sight. Whatever the rightness or wrongness of his actions, he knows that Peter’s still haunted. He’s seen the aftermath of his nightmares, and he knows what it’s like to live under that shadow. He reaches out and twines his fingers through Peter’s, squeezes tight. After a beat, the kid squeezes back.

“My father worked on the Manhattan project,” Tony says, leaning back in his seat but keeping Peter’s hand wrapped firmly in his own. “I know the science. I’ve seen the research. I suppose it’s not the same, but I still feel the guilt of it. He developed this thing that can make the entire world quake in fear. Puts everything I’ve invented to shame.”

“That’s not on you, Tony,” Peter says softly. Even in his distress, he’s defending Tony against his own mind. “You don’t have to bear the weight of what he did. The things you create are beautiful.”

He brings his free hand up to rub at the silver of the web shooter bands he still wears. The ones that Tony made for him.

“Your mind is so beautiful.”

Peter frees his hand from Tony’s gently, lets long fingers ghost across Tony’s palm, and then slips away.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I’ve brought up bad memories now in addition to everything else. I’ll go.  I really am so sorry about everything, Tony.”

He makes to open the door, slip outside into the rain, but Tony’s heart jerks at that, so violently that he swears he can hear the reactor give a little groan in protest. He hooks a finger around the silver ring at Peter’s wrist and hauls him back, keeps pulling until they’re plastered together, forehead to forehead.

The kid’s eyes are deep and brown and brimming with unshed tears. Tony watches transfixed as his lashes tremble, sending a solitary tear rolling down his cheek. He runs a thumb along his cheekbone to catch it.

“Don’t cry sweetheart,” he whispers. “Please. I’m gonna fix it.”

The very second it seems like a real possibility that Peter might leave, Tony realizes it’s the last thing he wants. He never wants him to go. Ever. And anything that he’s done in the past doesn’t matter. What does it compare to all Tony’s done, anyway? All he wants is to pull Peter close and keep him there.

Peter lets out a sound that could be a laugh or could be a sob.

“You can’t fix this, Tony,” he says.

The growl that rises in Tony’s throat is completely involuntary.

“Watch me,” he says, words rumbling through him.

He will. He’d burn the world down for Peter Parker. No question.

“How can you just … Not care? About all the things I’ve done?”

“I told you, kid,” Tony says. “I’m in love with you. Everything else sort of pales compared to that.”

Peter blinks at him with wide, disbelieving eyes. Tony feels the kid’s entire body shake with the breath he releases. Then he inches forward, hesitates before presses his mouth against Tony’s. It’s a featherlight kiss, salty from the tears that have snaked their way down Peter’s face.

It only turns heated when Tony chases that tang with his tongue. That’s when Peter opens his mouth and groans into the embrace, leaning over the gearshift to plaster as much of his body against Tony’s as possible.

It’s intoxicating to be wanted by someone like this. Tony’s had his share of women and men, some of them interested in him for his charm and good humor, others for his money and fame, but he’s never been with anyone like Peter. When he kisses Tony, it feels like he wants to devour his very soul.

The kicker is, Tony wants to allow it. He can’t seem to resist. He, in fact, whines in protest when Peter separates their mouths, but grumblingly acquiesces once Peter commences laving hot kisses down the length of his neck.

The emotional turmoil of the last day has edged Tony’s nerves up so high that coming down from that – with one hand steadied on the back of Peter’s neck and the other fisting at the fabric of his shirt – feels like flying instead of falling.

He’s so swept away that he hardly notices when Peter unzips his pants. The dry hand wrapped around his cock, though, definitely gets his attention. He gasps at the feeling of the rough callus forming on Peter’s palm against his sensitive skin. It’s from using his webs, Tony registers, and the thought sends an extra little electric thrill across his skin.

They’re good, capable hands. Long-fingered, but surprisingly strong for all their delicate structure. He’d be perfectly happy being taken apart by them. But Peter only gives him a few cursory strokes before his hand steadies at the base.

Tony honest-to-god “harrumphs” at that, and Peter snorts at his reaction. He places a final open-mouthed kiss in the hollow of Tony’s collarbone before struggling out of his seat and down so he can kneel in the floorboard.

“Is this ok?” he asks, looking up at Tony through his lashes, which is a dirty, dirty trick. “Can I?”

“You don’t …” Tony begins, but his mind whirrs emptily in protest before he can finish.

“Please?” Peter asks, so prettily, hot breath already ghosting over his length.

“Alright, brat, have it your way,” Tony says, and he means it to come out all confident and sexy, but he rushes through the words, and instead they’re a jumble of sounds that hardly make sense in his own ears.

The kid must get the picture, though, because he gives Tony a wicked grin. And then Peter’s mouth is on him, and Tony has to throw his head back against the seat and try like hell not to thrust up into the delicious sensation.

One thing, though. Peter Parker is a tease. He purses his lips and sucks at the head, bobbing only millimeters, but not lower. He licks a hot stripe up Tony’s shaft and then blows a cool breath of air over the same path.

All the while, he snakes one hand under Tony’s shirt and runs his palm slowly up his abdomen. Which is fine. Tony’s not going to protest a little nipple play. But that’s not what he gets.

In one viciously coordinated movement, Peter sinks down on him, engulfing most of his length while spreading his palm out across the width of the reactor, fingers snaking around the sensitive edge where metal meets skin.

Tony bucks at the sensory overload of it, the electric pulses radiating out from where Peter teases the reactor mixing with the warm, wet pleasure from his mouth. The kid chokes a little at the unexpected intrusion, gags. Tony can feel the muscles of his throat constrict around him, and he both wants to offer an apology and keep on thrusting forward.

With effort, he holds himself in check, and Peter keeps going, seemingly unfazed but for his initial discomfort. He bobs up and down, sinking lower with each pass, and draws whorls on the ugly, puckered skin around the reactor with his fingertips.

Tony’s had this thing in his chest for years, but he hadn’t known it was sensitive in this way until two nights ago, when Peter had dared bring his lips to it. He generally avoids touching it himself but in the most cursory of ways. It’s the ugliest part of him, skin mangled from the inexpert field surgery, and he’s let hardly any other human being even see it.

Peter looks at it like it’s a wonder, and thinks of it as something to give Tony pleasure, and it’s a revelation. Tony wants his hands there always, teasing and soothing in turns.

“Your heart gonna be ok?” Peter asks, letting his tongue dip into Tony’s slit. He’s hard and dripping and on edge, and he wants to protest the absence of Peter’s warm mouth on him, but then the kid is nuzzling his cock with his cheek, and looking up at Tony with wide, innocent eyes.

“Good,” Tony strains out, nodding jerkily. “I’m good.”

“I can feel it,” he confides while he mouths kisses onto the side of Tony’s shaft, wet and lingering. “Racing. Under my hand.”

Tony can feel it too, the rabbit-quick pace of his pulse making him feel light-headed. Sucking in a steading breath, Tony brings his own hand up to cover Peter’s, looks down at him and answers honestly.

“That’s what you do to me, kid,” he manages. “Always. Don’t stop.”

The corners of Peter’s mouth tip up in a smile, and he swallows Tony down again, going deep as he can, gagging a little, but working through it with a little bob of his head. It’s tight and wondrous, and Tony tries his damnedest to think of something that will help him last, let him stay perfectly on this edge of pleasure for a little longer.

He grips the steering wheel and mutters a stream of nonsensical curses. Then two things happen. Peter swallows around him and plunges blunt nails into the scar tissue around the reactor. The combination of those sensations, fizzing and crashing through him, make his brain go white and calm as he comes, rolling his hips up once, twice.

Tony sinks down into the seat, panting, head lolling. Creakily, he uncurls his fingers from the steering wheel and lets his them sink into the soft nest of Peter’s hair.

“They should write songs about that,” he says, flushed and breathless.

Peter shakes his head and snorts, arching up into Tony’s hand.

“They could never play a song like that on the radio,” he says. “There’d be riots.”

*

It’s intoxicating to be this close to Tony after the sharp break between them yesterday morning, after the turmoil of the conversation where he was sure, completely sure, that Tony would be lost to him forever.

Peter revels in feeling the solid weight of the man on his tongue, filling his mouth and making him feel paradoxically calm and centered. There’s no hint of his familiar aftershave from Peter’s position on his knees, just Tony’s musk, and the scent of clean skin and sweat.

Peter presses his hand against the warm metal of the arc reactor, feels the quick thrum of Tony’s heart, and feels safe and surrounded by nothing but Tony Stark.

It’s only after the other man has come, and he’s combing his fingers through Peter’s hair, that he even realizes that the whole experience has left him hard and aching. On unsteady legs, he pushes himself back up into his seat and presses a hand to his cock to relieve some of the pressure. It will only take a few strokes at most, with Tony massaging his scalp like that.

The rain beats soothingly on the roof of the car, and the windows have fogged up with the heat of their breath and bodies so they’re cocooned here together. It’s a sweet and unexpected reprieve.

Tony is trailing a finger along his cheek, teasing his thumb against Peter’s swollen lips. He’s got to look like an absolute wreck, but he doesn’t care.

“You look like you could use a little hand there …” Tony is saying with a smirk in his voice when a gentle tap comes on the drivers’ side window.

“Hallo,” comes a muffled voice. “Est-ce que tout va bien?”

For a moment, the two of them share a wide-eyed panicked look, and then Tony is tucking himself away, and Peter is hurriedly trying to straighten his hair. He goes from hard to limp faster than he imagined possible.

Peter covers his mouth with a hand as Tony rolls down the window to greet the pleasant young police officer.

It’s only when the clean scent of rain flows into the car that Peter realizes the entire cab smells unmistakably of sex. There is absolutely no way the officer won’t realize what they were doing. Peter’s spiraling internally while Tony explains to the officer that they were having engine trouble, and that’s why they stopped in the alley.

“But sir, the engine is still running,” the policeman points out, and Peter knows for sure they’re going to be arrested for lewd behavior or indecent exposure of something. For two men, no doubt the penalties will be severe. They’ll want to make an example.

Tony, however, just gives the officer a winning smile and replies in perfect French: “Yes, it’s running _now_. Thank you so much for your concern officer. We’ll just be going.”

Smoothly, he shifts the car into gear, gives the officer a little wave, and pulls back out onto the street.

They drive in stunned silence, directionless along the backstreets. Peter’s heart is still beating hard in his chest. He can’t believe they got away with that. He can’t believe he was so reckless. But something about Tony brings it out in him. He wants to kiss him in the middle of the street on a sunny day, and he’s never felt that way about anyone before.

The silence in the car is broken when Tony snorts. The snort turns into a ridiculous, high-pitched giggle, which transforms into a belly laugh that makes him throw his head back. Peter can’t help but bury his head in his hands and laugh along, tears leaking out of his eyes from the catharsis of it.

“Jesus,” Tony pants when he’s finally managed to reign in his mirth. “Your face, Pete. It’s a wonder we weren’t arrested on the spot.”

“A fucking close call,” Peter agrees, wiping the tears from his eyes. “It would be just my luck to be absolved of burglary and arrested for indecency on the same day.”

“Oh, but I do love it when you’re indecent,” Tony says, and Peter gives him a sideways glace.

“Same,” he answers, a little embarrassed.

“So what next?” Tony asks. “We need to flesh out the plan, right? Or, I could buy you dinner first. We could plan later?”

His tone suggests that very little planning would actually take place.

“Actually,” Peter says. “Could you take me home?”

“Home?” Tony asks, and his voice goes all warm and grumbly in a way that reminds Peter that he still hasn’t come, despite holding himself on the edge of it for so long.

“Not…” he tries to clarify, but struggles. “My home. My apartment. I just … It should be safe for me to go back now, and there are some things I need to take care of before the weekend.”

It’s impossible to miss the way the smile that had been forming at the corners of Tony’s mouth fades.

“Of course,” he says. “Home it is. But, uh, where’s home?”

Peter directs him along the coast road and back to Biot. They’re quiet for most of the ride except for his directions, but Tony’s hand remains on his thigh, warm and steady, whenever it isn’t needed to shift gears.

The rain has mostly slowed to a drizzle by the time they reach the apartment. Tony parks the car and pulls his hand away from Peter.

“You’ll be in touch, right?” he says. “I might remind you that the Black Widow will do what I ask if I complain enough.”

“Yes,” Peter says, unable to keep the fondness out of his voice. “I’ll be in touch. Please don’t send your assassin after me.”

“Fair enough,” Tony says, and then he moves toward Peter with his whole body.

They aren’t parked in an abandoned alley anymore. They’re on an open street, and anyone could look in through the windows. Peter panics.

“Tony …” he protests faintly.

“It’s not a hug,” Tony says. “I’m just getting the door for you.”

And that’s what he does, chest brushing against Peter’s tantalizingly as he pulls the door handle.

“Thanks,” Peter manages, stumbling out of the car before he gets dangerously distracted.

He’s got to walk away. He’s going to. Definitely. But before he can, Tony grabs his hand, clutching tight and pulling Peter back a little.

“What happened today,” he says, then stops. His eyebrows scrunch together, like he’s searching for the right words. “With the policeman. I don’t want you to feel like there’s something seedy about this thing between us. There’s nothing seedy about what I feel for you.”

The affection Peter feels for him in that moment makes his chest feel uncomfortably full. He doesn’t really believe that Tony can fix things for him. His situation hasn’t magically improved now that they’ve spoken. He’s still just as trapped as ever.

Why then, does he feel more hopeful whenever Tony looks at him. It’s foolishness and folly. Yet Peter can’t be bothered to care.

Cautiously, Peter darts his eyes up and down the street. They’re alone for now, unwatched. He turns Tony’s hand in his own and brushes a kiss over his knuckles, an echo of what Tony did the first time they met.

“I know,” he whispers back. “I know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ya'll, it has literally been six months since I've updated this story, and I am so sorry to anyone who might have been waiting on a new chapter. I am easily distracted by shiny things, and it took me a long-ass time to get back into the right headspace to write in this 'verse. 
> 
> But I'm back, and I'm glad to say I'm nearing the end with this one. There should only be 2-3 more chapters, depending on how I decide to break things up. 
> 
> As always, thanks for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> So this is a little bit different from what I've done with these two in the past, but I recently re-watched To Catch a Thief, and I thought that the style would be a perfect fit for these two hyper-verbal characters. So much banter. So much suppressed sexual tension. You don't have to have seen the movie for it to make sense, but I do highly recommend it as a thoroughly enjoyable romp. 
> 
> There's a lot of scene setting here, but hopefully now that I've got a lot of the groundwork laid, future chapters will flow a little better.
> 
> A slight disclaimer: While I feel I have an ok grasp of the history surrounding this era, I am not a historian, and there will inevitably be inaccuracies and anachronisms. If you notice something egregious, or something that just really bugs you, let me know in the comments. I'll try to correct anything that doesn't interfere with either the plot I'm building or my own authorial whim. Look, ya'll, it's an AU, and there's a big multiverse out there, right? 
> 
> Hope you enjoy!


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